


Won't You Let Me Drive You Home?

by sar7891



Series: Won't You Let Me Drive You Home? [1]
Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Fluff, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 17:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9249068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sar7891/pseuds/sar7891
Summary: “Oh my God,” Christen hears Tobin mutter as she looks up at her before rolling over onto her side. The way she repeats this first statement startles her, making her think that something’s wrong, “Oh. My. God.”“What?” She snaps her head back in wonder and concern.“You’re a morning person,” Tobin’s groaning into her pillow at this point and Christen can’t help but laugh at her reaction, “You’re a morning person and you’re taking my sheets from me.”AKA another college AU where Christen's in a sorority and is a math major.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, so really, truly I have a lot to say to start this out.  
> 1) Title is from the song Rhythm and Blues by The Head and the Heart. If you wanna know what ridiculous music I listen to while writing, I suggest you start with their new album. Heck, I just have been listening to this album since it came out in all life settings.  
> 2) I know what you're all thinking, Sarah-Anne, what the heck are you doing? Why haven't you updated seasons when you said it'd be done by the new year? Well this is my answer, this bitch of an idea popped into my head and I've been trying to churn it out but every damn day it just got longer and longer and longer and bam suddenly it was 30k. The next two chapters should be up in the next week and a half so you're in luck.  
> 3) I promise I tried with editing, I really did, but like usual I do it myself so I apologize for my inevitable run on sentences and affinity for commas.  
> 4) A lot of this is based at a much larger school that I don't know much about with much larger chapter sizes than I'm used to, however I did help with extension recruitment and initiation at a large school so I do know a thing or two about recruitment at least. I didn't name specific sororities, but Julie's is pretty easy to guess and I dropped a small hint about Kelley/Christen's that you'll probably be able to pick up if you have said chapters at your school.

Christen is just finishing wiping off the last few bits of eyeliner, mascara, and eyeshadow when she hears her bedroom dorm open and fall shut a few seconds later. A loud sigh erupts from her roommate as she hears the thud of her bag and heeled shoes hitting the floor a couple seconds later.

 

“Chris?” The sweet, soft sound of her roommate's voice drifts through the door, “You back already?”

 

A head of blonde hair peeks through the door, pushing open the already cracked door slightly, she can’t see her though because she’s holding a cotton pad rubbing against her eyelids as gently as possible while trying to do a thorough job at getting the caked makeup off, “Yeah Jules, just got back a few minutes ago, how’d it go?”

 

Another sigh escapes from the girl’s lips, originally her new roommate and her had agreed _not_ to talk about any details of their nights, however, after the first round when they were confused and trying to keep every bit of information straight and remember who was who that rule had quickly gone to the wayside, “It was such a hard choice, I was really unsure.”

 

Christen nods at her roommate sympathetically, she knew Julie was going to have a tough time choosing between the two chapters she had left on preference night. Each night when Julie came back more confused than the night before from tours of houses it made her more and more thankful that she had her mom and sister to back her up, give her advice, and help keep her confidence levels up during the whole recruitment process.

 

The week had gone by in a blur. First there was move in day, where her mom and dad had helped her move in just in under their two hour allocated time slot. Then there was meeting Julie, which had gone swimmingly and had calmed a lot of her nerves about starting college. A day later they’d been thrust into the onslaught of recruitment, starting out with the first two days of open house, then philanthropy night, followed by sisterhood night, and finally ending with pref today.

 

Christen had been warned about how difficult sorority recruitment would be, especially in the south. Her mom had been in a sorority in college and she still volunteered as an advisor back home. Then three years ago when her older sister went off to college, she also went through the recruitment process and ended up in a different chapter than her mother’s.

 

Like every other aspect of her life, Christen was over prepared for recruitment. She’d signed up for early bird registration shortly after making her final decision and submitting her down payment for the first semester. Her required shirt open house had come in the mail along with all the details for each round, a pamphlet filled with information ranging for everything from dues, to colors, to philanthropies, and the dress code for each night.

 

It’d taken her a long while to decipher what things like ‘snappy casual’ meant (her older sister ended up telling her that three years later she’s not even really sure what it means either) and how to piece her outfits together. She’d gotten her rec letters for each house, starting out with her mom and sister for their houses, and reaching out to people in the community to obtain the rest.

 

She would be lying if she said that she didn’t feel like giving up before it even began. It was pretty ridiculous really, the amount of preparation that was necessary to getting into a sorority, and it all seemed pretty superficial to her.

 

However, at the end of the day she knew what she wanted. She wanted memories like the ones her mom would share with them around the dinner table, like the ridiculous antics she got up to while living in the house. She wanted to support a cause fiercely like her mom does, always ready to contribute not only financially but in person. She wanted the friendships like her mom has, the ones where they would meet up for a week and gossip about their lives, reminisce over college like it was just yesterday, and boast about their children, never forgetting to live a fulfilling life. She wants something to be so great for her that she wants to continue to give back like her mom does. That’s what she wants.

 

Watching her sister talk about it and gush over everything she does made her want it even more.

 

So begrudgingly she prepares herself, picks her outfits out way too far in advance, goes over questions and brainstorms answers with her sister who is preparing for the other side of recruitment herself.

 

It’d been tearing her up inside for so long. Since she was young and understood the concept of what a sorority was she’d wanted to be just like her mom. Hell, she’d always wanted to be just like her mom in general. Her mom was always so _cool._ She dressed well, she was funny, when she was in elementary school her mom always packed her lunches other kids would drool over, her friends always wanted to hang out at her house because there was always something fun to do that her mom would arrange.

 

But then there was her sister too. She’d gone off, done her own thing, joined her own sorority and couldn’t have picked better. Her mom was supportive even though it wasn’t her legacy chapter that she’d ended up with, and they still bonded over the commonalities of Greek life.

 

So yes, her decision at the end of the day had been tough. She’d come in with an open mind, she knew that every chapter was different at every school, and there was a large possibility that she wouldn’t connect with the girls she met at either of her legacy chapters, and if that was the case she reminded herself that it would be okay. She can take her own path, make her own way.

 

But she did connect well, with both of the chapters. Every night she was so excited to see those two on her invite list, they were the first she looked for and the two she always felt relieved after seeing.

 

Pref night was a bunch of girls running around in black dresses, a lot of crying, and was also kind of strange. So many girls were going home anxious about the choices they’d had to make and getting dropped by their top chapters. Christen had to admit, she’d expressed her own concerns to her mother and sister about it, but she was always reassured that she’d end up where she was supposed to be.

 

So at the end of the night she’d ended up listing her mother’s chapter over her sister’s, just because that’s what felt right to her. Yet she was nervous, because who knows what would happen, and by the look on Julie’s face she was quite nervous too.

 

“Just think Jules,” Christen pauses before turning to brush her teeth, “Tomorrow we’ll be getting our envelopes and hopping on a bus to go meet our new sisters. I’m sure everything will turn out just fine.”

 

Julie smiles at her with a nod in the mirror, “Always so optimistic Chris, I think I’ll keep you around.”

 

-

 

Bid day rolls around and Christen is in a sea surrounded by frantic girls clutching envelopes. Clutching her own, she looks around in hopes of potentially finding Julie before the announcement is made to rip their envelopes open together. With hundreds of girls surrounding them, she’s out of luck and ends up in a rush down to the open field where they were all corralled to open their letters at the same time. As the head recruitment counselor starts counting down she takes a minute to close her eyes, swallow down any nerves that she has, and when the countdown hits one she slides her finger through her envelope.

 

All she remembers is the loud pitch of women screaming in unison and disaffiliated recruitment counselors clapping in excitement. A large smile wipes across her face when she reads the letters she’d wanted to see so desperately and she’s not sure what to do. The reveal of their recruitment counselors is to follow immediately and even though she hears the clapping and chanting of the group up front begin she’s a little more preoccupied and overwhelmed in the moment. Snatching her phone from her pocket she snaps a quick picture of her bid card and presses send to the embarrassingly titled family group chat her dad had chosen to name: ‘Press Pack’.

 

She doesn’t have time to check their responses until she gets home because she’s immediately flooded with screaming girls, gifts, and hugs as she walks up to the house. For hours she’s introduced to what feels like the entire chapter, their executive board, and her new pledge mom. Other girls are floored with happiness and then there are some who look completely overwhelmed just like herself.

 

Once again she beats Julie to the room but this time is checking her phone with her new shirt on her body that she isn’t prepared to take off quite yet. She giggles as she’s scrolling through their group chat at all the names her dad has changed in her phone:

 

_Steven Tyler: !!!!!!!!!!_

_Steven Tyler: So happy for you Chris, love ya :D_

 

_Channing Tatum: Mom’s going to die!_

 

_Big Daddy: Proud of you my favorite middle child, have lots of fun. Don’t forget to call us later with all the deets. We miss you over here on the other side of the country!_

 

_Mama: So excited for you sweetheart! Give us a call when you can! Love you <3 _

 

Just as she’s about to give a call to her parents as requested, she hears the increasingly familiar tapping of Julie entering her pin code to enter their room, followed by a swipe of her student ID, and finally sees the door popping open.

 

Before she even has time to realize it escaping from her mouth, she lets out a squeal of excitement as she watches her roommate drop her bag to the ground when she notices the distinct sailor hat sitting atop her head and the anchor on her shirt. Julie strikes a pose with the oh so familiar hand sign she’s seen in a countless number of her older sister’s photos.

 

With a wide smile on her face as her roommate pulls her into a tight hug, she’s really beginning to think that this whole freshman year thing has gotten off to a good start.

 

-

 

On the second day of classes Christen feels utterly lost. She’d been overly prepared for the first day, knew where her classes would be, what times they were at, had her lunch break scheduled to meet up with Julie, and her textbooks purchased and with her just in case she would need them on the first day.

 

Very quickly she learned that there would be no grace period for her major related classes. Bravely, she’d entered the school as a mathematics major. Her private high school had set her up well, she’d been able to test out of the first two calculus classes and was thrown in Calc three her freshman year where she found out that she was the only freshman in her section on the first day. They were barely handed their syllabus before the professor dove right into content, heck, she hadn’t even gotten one passed back to her before the tall, lanky, and (decidedly) socially awkward professor had started excitedly talking about three dimensional coordinate spaces. The lectures would be held Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with her discussion section held on Thursday's. Afterwards she met with Julie for lunch which she’d been utterly thankful that their schedules aligned and allowed them time to eat together at least for the first few weeks while she was still trying to get her bearings on campus. Her programming class in the afternoon had been a bit more lax, admittedly she’d been a little exasperated to find out that they’d be programming in R when she already knew a bit of Python from a class in high school but she supposes that’s what happens when you find yourself in an intro course.

 

Tuesday has been different so far. She enters into her first class in a lecture hall, strikingly different from her high school experience where her class sizes were always less than twenty people. There are people milling about, people chatting with her neighbors and she finds herself extremely overwhelmed. It probably doesn’t matter if she sits in the front or the back based on the class size but she figures the farther back she sits the more she’ll get distracted so she opts towards maybe the sixth or seventh row back from the front. She slides in towards the middle so she’s not that obnoxious person who sat near the aisle and needs to let everyone in to get to an open spot. Since she’s ten minutes early, there’s quite a bit of open seats left and she’s not sure if the room will fill to the point that she’ll have neighbors sitting next to her or not.

 

Sure enough, a few minutes after she’s pulled out her laptop to set up a few guys ask if the seats next to her are taken, she nods her head and replys with a courteous “no” and they plop down in the spots, their loud voices booming and laughing as they drop their identical backpacks to the ground in front of them.

 

A few minutes later the professor starts the lecture after fiddling around with her Britney Spears esque mic and TA’s start passing out syllabi down the aisles. She browses mindlessly, closes her laptop, and tunes out the professor who starts at the beginning of the syllabus, quoting the mandatory academic integrity policy that she already read twice last night in the syllabi from her first two classes.

 

The syllabus seems pretty bland to her, two “midterm” exams, one final, a small participation percentage, and a project presentation to be evaluated by TA’s in their discussion sessions. There’s only a light amount of reading it seems and she wonders if the professor actually has any passion or interest in teaching the required Intro to Poli Sci course to a bunch of rambunctious freshman and sophomores that seem to be overflowing in the class.

 

Her attention is caught when the professor asks the room to open their laptops and pull out their phones as she covers the participation portion, asking them to pull open the website link posted on the screen at the front of the room. They’re told that they’re only allowed to skip two classes unexcused without penalty and that they would be asked frequently in class to answer questions via the polling website in class for the TA’s to track attendance. Christen mentally shrugs at this, at least the professor is trying to convince people to come to class.

 

When she walks out of the room she is relatively impressed that her professor was able to fill an entire hour and a half long class just talking about the syllabus but then turns her focus on trying to locate the room her discussion section is supposed to be held in. She has an awkward half hour time block in between the end of the lecture and it but she wants to make sure she is able to find the building.

 

Luckily, she has the extra time because today she needs it. It’s not finding the building that’s difficult, it’s finding the classroom. For whatever reason, the classrooms wind with number patterns that aren’t consistent. The placard that has her room number with an arrow pointing to the left should actually be an arrow pointing to the right and she ends up circling the wrong half of the building before she gives up and walks to the other side, immediately finding the room she’d been looking for. There are a couple other people (freshman she guesses by the lanyards hanging off their necks or grasped in their hands) waiting outside for the students filing out of the room before them.

 

They’re all ten minutes early, and the TA walks in five minutes later. A few stragglers walk in shortly before the beginning of class, some with fresh cups of coffee in their hands. The TA begins talking, says he’s not going to go over the whole syllabus since they just listened to it, but says that their priority for these sections is the project element of the course. He explains that each group will have to present twice in the semester, basically just presenting two chapters of the textbook. Chapters and groups are already predetermined and he projects the pairings up on the board in the front of the room.

 

Christen scrunches her face seeing her partner’s name. _Tobin Heath_ she thinks, is that a girl or a guy? They’re handed out sheets of paper as the TA keeps talking, “No switching partners, I will find out. These papers are just as much for your benefit as they are for mine. Take the rest of the time to find your partner, fill out the worksheet, and exchange contact information so you can figure out how you do the project. I don’t care if you divide and conquer or if you actually do the work together, as long as each of you gets up and presents for an equal amount of time. There’ll be confidential evaluations at the end of the semester on your partner to make sure one person’s not carrying the weight of the whole team so I suggest you do your fair share of the work.”

 

With that students start buzzing about, trying to find their partners. Christen turns to the boy next to her, asking quietly, “You don’t happen to know Tobin Heath, do you?”

 

He shrugs his shoulders and nods a polite no, “I assume you’re not Jennifer then?”

 

“Nope,” She flicks her eyes further around the room, it seems not very many people know each other in the room because it looks like everyone is doing the same thing. It takes her two more failures before someone comes up to her, “Are you Christen by any chance?”

 

The girl's voice is not exactly what the suspected upon seeing her for the first time. She nods with a polite yes, “And you’re Tobin?”

 

“Yep,” Christen drops her backpack down to the ground again as Tobin slides into an open spot. As she sits down, she watches as the other girl, Tobin, tugs at the ponytail holder in her hair and lets down her long brown hair over her shoulders. She runs a hand through the front so that it sits brushed back and falls over her left shoulder. Christen looks down quickly as Tobin glances up at her, trying not to get caught staring.

 

Tobin repeats the first question on the worksheet out loud, “So, Christen, spelled C-H-R-I-S-T-E-N? That’s different.”

 

Christen can’t help but let out a giggle as Tobin laughs over the spelling of her name, it’s unnecessary but infectious and she just can’t stop it, “And to think, I came out relatively unscathed compared to my sisters.”

 

Tobin seems content to stay off track, crossing her arms over her desk and smiling at her, “What, your parents able to come up with anything more creative than Tobin?”

 

Christen shakes her head gently no at the challenge, smiling a little back because Tobin just seems to be so _happy_ and she’s unsure why, “Not quite, Channing and Tyler. People just always think I’ve got two brothers.”

 

“Well I think your parents with three unique names trumps my parent’s one,” Tobin shrugs as she leans back in her chair now, “I’m the only one with a weird name.”

 

She’s not exactly sure what to do with that information so she glances back down at the sheet of paper in front of her, “So, uh, major?”

 

Tobin is silent for a moment and Christen glances up at her, Tobin’s eyebrows are furrowed together in confusion before she sighs at the transition, “Junior, communications, Jersey. You?”

 

Christen nods and awkwardly clicks her tongue as she scribbles down the answers quickly before picking her head back up to look at Tobin. Tobin tries to make eye contact with her as she states her own answers, “Freshman, math, LA.”

 

Tobin mutters a soft “hmm” as she turns to write down Christen’s own answers and glances at the other questions while doing so, but before she asks, she picks her head back up to look at Christen again, “Favorite food? Song? And tv show?”

 

Christen bites her lip and smirks a little bit at Tobin, contemplating two answers but decides to go with the safer one, just in case, “Seafood, eh anything from the Head and the Heart, and _Game of Thrones.”_

 

Tobin just nods as she continues to scribble down on her paper before picking her head up, “Apples, Don’t Worry Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin, and I don’t really have time to watch tv.”

 

Christen can’t help but think to herself, apples? Just apples? In a bit of confusion she picks her head back up to study Tobin, in a second glance over her she notices the finer details of her, the slenderness of her face, her jawline, how slender but toned her body is in general, the casualness of her outfit, ripped jeans with a plain black t-shirt and nike sneakers. Not a stitch of makeup graces her face but her eyelashes are long and her hair is wavy, potentially air dried she thinks.

 

She’s _pretty_ she thinks a bit juvenilely to herself without coming up with a better way to express it. In the most unconventional of ways she’s got slight hints of femininity about her that went unnoticed the first time she looked at her. Her long hair, unkempt but healthy, her nails are short but painted meticulously, a long necklace hangs around her neck in stark contrast with her sneakers, and a distinct Cartier ring adorns the middle finger of her right hand. Christen thinks that she wants to know more about her, what she likes to do in her spare time, what she does on campus, why she chose her major, what the significance behind her name is (because there has to be something, right?), what she does to work out, if she runs, why she’s just now taking intro to poli sci as a junior, and a whole slew of other things slip into her brain that she doesn’t think she’ll ever vocalize to the junior sitting across from her.

 

Before she realizes that she’s even zoned out, Tobin hands her her phone with a smile on her face, “Easier than email, and I leave my read receipts on so you can call me out when I forget to text you back.”

 

Christen nods her head and hands her her own phone, letting the brunette type her number into her phone, “So if we’re presenting for the first time two weeks from today, we should probably start getting to work soon.”

 

Tobin’s eyebrow quirks up at her and Christen frowns, did she read the date wrong? Are they presenting in October or in two weeks? She glances back at the board, and confirms that it’s indeed two weeks from today and their second presentation date is in early November.

 

“Well, I can honestly say I’ve never met someone who wanted to start a project more than a week in advance, but I am going to be gone part of next week so maybe we should. Text me when you’re free, we can figure something out.”

 

Christen is really confused why she would already be missing the second week of school but decides not to question it.

 

“Not bad, only twenty minutes and we’re done,” Tobin glances down at her phone upon retrieval and picks up her backpack to walk out. Christen follows her, other groups are trickling out after they hand the TA their short and quite frankly pathetic worksheets. She keeps following Tobin because she’s so disorientated from walking around the building earlier and they make small talk, Tobin is polite and asks her how her first few days have been and if she’s liking North Carolina so far. When they exit outside Christen squints in confusion, Tobin had led her out a door she hadn’t entered through and was confused as to where exactly she was but she doesn’t want to open her phone and pull up her map in front of Tobin, who looks like she could walk through campus backwards like one of the tour guides and still know where she was.

 

“Where you headed?” Tobin chuckles, seemingly picking up on her confusion, and Christen thinks she needs to get a little better at not letting her emotions show so clearly through her facial expressions.

 

“I was going to get lunch,” She states while trying to scan the buildings for something familiar that will give away what the best direction for her to go is, but she comes up dry.

 

“Cool, so am I,” Tobin sticks her thumb up and points over her shoulder, “But I think you’ll find that the cafeteria is actually in that direction.”

 

Christen’s face blushes red, she’s been on campus for a while because of recruitment but hadn’t really had much time to explore with all the walking from house to house she’d been doing.

 

Tobin may be too intuitive for her own good Christen thinks and internally scolds herself for embarrassing herself, but Tobin just laughs again in the silence with a wide, toothy smile on her face that Christen can’t help but smile back at, “It’s fine, we were all lost freshman once upon a time. Are you meeting someone or are you single pringle today?”

 

“I was going to meet my roommate, but her class doesn’t finish for another forty minutes,” Christen explains, she hadn’t really thought about what she’d do or who she’d eat with while her roommate was finishing up with class. She figures she probably could have reached out to one of her new sorority sisters who’d invited her to eat with them on facebook after bid night but it’s a bit late now.

 

“Perfect,” Tobin nods, seemingly satisfied with herself, “I was just going to go and hope that I ran into someone but we can eat together.”

 

Christen’s eyebrows knit together once again, decidingly surprised over Tobin’s friendliness but decides she’s probably got no better options and Tobin is interesting enough. Tobin’s got an air of confidence about her that makes Christen jealous, she walks around campus like she owns the place and about every fifth person she walks by says hello or waves at her that leaves Christen feeling so overwhelmed and makes her wonder if she’ll ever get to that level of comfort in her new home.

 

When she’s walking through the options for meals there’s a flood of people she hadn’t seen during recruitment. She forgot for a moment that yes, there were guys that went to the school. It was strange after having a week of solely female interaction. She’d only seen potential new sorority members walking around and come to think of it now, all the other sorority girls were probably eating in their houses, which is why it seemed so empty in the cafeteria every time her and Julie had walked through with a couple of girls from her floor.

 

While she’s walking through she gets stopped by a few people, and she’s a bit surprised about how people who’d met hundreds of potential new members through recruitment could remember her specifically and she feels slightly embarrassed that she doesn’t remember their names yet but she figures the time will come for that and she’ll get better at it. Tobin gets stopped a fair few times herself, usually by various other muscular men and women as they go through the salad bar together. It’s not until she stops to grab an apple and her back is completely facing Christen for the first time that she sees the blue embroidered NC on her black backpack and a blue luggage tag hanging off of it that she’s seen other athletes have that it finally clicks. _So she’s an athlete._

 

Tobin’s standing in front of her in line and tells the cashier that she’s paying for both of their meals and hands him her card before sending a wink back to Christen, and Christen hopes that she’s just imagining the heat flushing her cheeks and that it didn’t actually happen.

 

When they exit to the tables, she follows Tobin yet again to a four person table before chastising her, “You really didn’t have to do that.”

 

Tobin shrugs her shoulders, “I always buy for people, athletes get the unlimited meal plan. You’ll be thanking me later in the semester when you’re running out of meal points.”

 

“Well, I’ll just thank you now in advance,” Christen smiles softly and tries to gather herself, “So, what sport do you play?”

 

“Guess,” Tobin states, “And I’ll try to guess what sorority you’re in.”

 

Christen laughs at her response, thinking that she really likes Tobin’s confident personality as she falls into conversation with each other.

 

-

 

It’s late at night when Christen and Julie are breaking down their days to each other when she feels her phone buzz against her right leg. They’re discussing classes and new sorority developments, they’re both going on sisterhood retreats the next weekend but their destinations are relatively under wraps and they’re both trying to figure out what to bring with them. Julie had been at a mixer with the sophomores that evening (and by mixer she means big-little hunting) and Christen has one the next evening at an ice cream shop. With recruitment over, they’re not really sure what to expect except for a continuation of the facebook messages from older girls inviting them to go out for coffee or lunch. Julie was beaming when she came back and had plans for lunch for almost the whole rest of the week and also a morning coffee one day.

 

When her phone buzzes she doesn’t think much of it, assuming it was probably her family or one of her high school friends because it was only seven back home but she’s a bit surprised to see that it was actually Tobin who had texted her.

 

She thinks it’s a bit strange actually, after Tobin’s comment about starting their project early she’d decided to back off a little, be a little less of a workaholic and controlling and was going to give it at least a day or two before sending her a text to check on her availability. After all, it was still the first week of classes and she needed some time to settle in and adjust.

 

_Tobin: Do you have class after we get out on Thursday?_

 

Christen bites her lip, concentrating on her schedule for the rest of the week. Her discussion section from her calculus class was before their poli sci lecture which left her with an extra hour long block in her afternoon when she’d had their poli sci discussion section earlier that day, so rather than two hours off, she’d have three before her intro to college writing class.

 

_Not until two!_

 

Christen is back listening to Julie talk intently for a while when a couple of the other girls in their hall that they’d met during recruitment stop in to check on them, asking if they wanted to come watch a couple episodes of _Friends_ in their room, which they both agree to as they close the textbooks that had been sitting abandoned on their laps in a feigned attempt of getting ahead on reading during their first week. It’s not until halfway through an episode that she feels her phone buzz again.

 

_Tobin: Perfect, lunch and then project?_

 

Christen’s a little flattered that Tobin either enjoyed her presence at lunch enough to ask her to eat again or that she’s being nice, either way she’s happy to be getting to know somebody who’s not her roommate and who’s not interrogating her on the history of her own life. Their lunch had gone well, at least she thought it had, their conversation had flowed pretty freely. They talked about Christen’s private school education in contrast to Tobin’s public school (which Christen came to find out that she missed more school than she actually attended there), and then about LA and Tobin had told her about how she’d started to pick up surfing after her mother moved to Florida. It seemed like one of the less forced conversations she’d had since arriving.

 

She responds with a short and simple _sure._

 

-

 

Christen spends her Wednesday afternoon getting a bit of work done before she leaves for her first mixer with the sophomores that evening. She hits up the library for a couple hours, getting her first assignment done to turn in for her calculus class the next morning and the reading that her and Tobin are supposed to present on, she even starts a presentation with a couple of charts to make things easier when she meets up with her partner.

 

So when Tobin sits down with her and she pulls open her laptop on Thursday afternoon she’s not expecting Tobin to start laughing.

 

“What?” She asks, almost a little offended.

 

“Nothing,” Tobin shakes her head, squinting at the screen, “It’s just that that’s the most professional looking powerpoint I’ve ever seen. I thought you said you were a freshman Press?”

 

“I am,” She glances over at the other girl in confusion, she thinks it’s nothing special, just a presentation she’d started on LaTeX, a program they’d used to make their poster presentations in high school, “It’s nothing special, just a powerpoint.”

 

As Christen flicks through her typing and the slides, Tobin seems to be even more confused, “Did you like code that yourself?”

 

“Yeah,” She types a little bit more, trying to fix the spacing of one of the charts she’d made about the branches of government, “It’s nothing special, just a basic presentation template.”

 

“You know you could have just googled something like that and cited it?” Tobin questions, as if it’s an obvious shortcut but Christen just shrugs in response.

 

“It took like five minutes, no big deal,” Tobin is relatively silent and begins to flick through her own notes.

 

“How do we want to break this up?” Tobin’s notes aren’t nearly as extensive as Christen’s, but the presentation is limited to ten minutes and there’s a lot to cover about the three branches of government in such a short amount of time so she’d assumed they’d just give brief summaries but Christen looks like she’d prepared for a full fifty minute lecture with what she’d brought, “Maybe we could have one of us do Judicial, the other does Executive, and we split Legislative, one of us can do the Senate and the other can do the House? Not exactly a bunch of new material or very hard to understand so far.”

 

“That sounds great, actually,” Christen dives further into the content at Tobin’s lead, discussing all the points she wants to discuss in depth as Tobin watches her intently, making eye contact with her and smiling every once in awhile to show that she’s paying to her. When she’s essentially covered an entire summary of all three branches of government and she glances up from the slides she’s made to see that Tobin has rested her pencil down on the table and is looking up at her, she takes a deep breath and a pause, “I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

 

She finds that it doesn’t take much to make Tobin laugh, because she immediately starts after her statement, “Just a little, it’s endearing though.”

 

Christen sighs and slouches down into her chair a little, “I’m sorry, you probably think I don’t trust you and that I’m going to take over.”

 

“It’s fine,” Christen takes a moment to look over her face again while she looks at her, she’s got a little bit of mascara on today and her lips seem a little pinker than the last time she’d seen her and since it’s quite a bit warmer than a few days ago, she’d noticed Tobin’s black shorts and army green short sleeve shirt. She’d tried to keep her mind in check as she followed Tobin out of the lecture hall earlier in the day but couldn’t help her eyes from wandering down the back of her legs as they streamed single file out of the classroom earlier. She could see with each step the way that Tobin’s muscles contracted as she tried to mentally convince her eyes to drift north and just stare at the back of her ponytail as they walked out, but that didn’t seem to help much and instead just left her to stare as her ponytail swung back and forth methodically like a pendulum, brushing the tips of her biceps every so often. All that did was lead her to stare at her arms, a body part she didn’t normally pick up on when it came to women she admired.

 

It was the way that she couldn’t take her eyes off of Tobin that she realized she’d developed a crush, and quite quickly. It’s been awhile since she’d truly had a crush on someone (at least someone she actually knew), and she thinks of how juvenile that sounds in her mind, she feels like a middle schooler thinking about it. The curse of her small private high school was that after basically the first two years she knew everyone, and she certainly knew that after she told her parents exactly _why_ her and her boyfriend had broken up (leaving out the small detail that he was just about as straight as she was) the summer between her junior and senior year that there weren’t any other _girls_ at her school that would feel the same way about her as she did about them. And to her, there was nothing that seemed anywhere close to being as unattractive as pining for a straight girl. After that, she’d strung her head high, confident in her body and her sexuality, trying not to let it get to her that her selection pool was small to nonexistent. It was fine she thought, that as she’d get older and meet new people that things would be better.

 

They way she’d subtly tried to check Tobin out, and the way she tried to force herself not to, reminded her of when she was in high school. It reminded her of the way she’d watch other girl’s straight hair swing or the way she’d admired the way their eye makeup accentuated their eyes, or the way she’d noticed the softness of their curves, always trying to remind herself that she was just jealous. Just jealous that her hair wasn’t straight and didn’t flow softly in the wind, or jealous that she didn’t know how to do her makeup well enough, or jealous that she didn’t have more than a palm full of breast. It wasn’t until her sophomore year of cross country when she’d been sitting on the bus to an away meet, next to one of the freshman girls who hit the DNA jackpot, with long skinny legs, tan skin, dirty blonde hair, rosy red cheeks, and pretty green eyes that she ever wondered about what would happen if she were to just lean in a little, if the other girl’s soft lips would taste different than the rough chapped lips of the guys she’d kissed before. She wondered if she’d taste like minty toothpaste and if her lipgloss was sticky and tasted like strawberries.

 

However, she wondered about Tobin in a different way, she wondered about all the different ways that she could make Tobin laugh, and wondered if the way she smiled was always genuine or if she was putting up a front. She wondered if Tobin liked girls the same way she did, or if she could at least like Christen. She wondered if Tobin giggles lightly when she feels someone’s breath tickle her skin softly when she gets kissed on the neck. She wondered if Tobin’s hand was larger than hers and if she’d be able to feel the cold metal of the ring she wears on her finger if they were to hold hands.

 

So it’s these feelings that she’d realized so suddenly, that hit her like a brick wall on the walk from the lecture hall to the cafeteria, that made her blush slightly and not know how to act in front of her.

 

“You’re really smart,” Tobin’s eyes continue to look into her, curse Tobin and her insistant eye contact, “Aren’t you?”

 

It makes Christen feel like she’s blushing, it reminds her of the other day when Tobin said she was endearing. She wonders if Tobin always does this, points out observations about people but phrases them in ways that could be interpreted as compliments.

 

“I mean you must be, to be a math major and stuff,” Tobin tries to cover up her statement when Christen isn’t sure what to respond, doesn’t have a compliment to return other than ‘you have really nice legs’ or ‘your eyes are really pretty’.

 

But she recovers quick enough, shrugging like it’s no big deal, “I think of it more like I work hard. Just like I could say you’re probably really athletic, but you probably work hard at that.”

 

“Touche,” Tobin smiles cheekily back at her, “But I like to think there’s a little natural talent there too. Just like you’re probably a little bit naturally smart.”

 

Christen’s eyebrow quirks up, really she probably was a bit naturally smart, but also she contributes a lot to her high school, it’d been extremely competitive. Academically, she’d come out relatively unscathed with a 3.8 GPA, did two varsity sports (cross country and swimming), was the president of the math club and the Spanish club, yet she always felt leaps and bounds behind the group in the running for valedictorian, the kids who were vying for Ivy Leagues, had 4.0’s, started their own businesses (that’s not even an exaggeration) or placed in the national science fair. So yeah, she thinks she’s a little humble about her academic achievements but to be fair there’d always been a lot of room for her to grow.

 

So after Tobin’s attempts at a few tangents, Christen gets them to focus back on the task at hand, partially because she’d feel pretty good about getting this all done before she leaves for the weekend and partially because she’s afraid if she starts to learn more and more about Tobin she may not be able to get refocused on what they’d come here to do.

 

They outline four talking points for Tobin and four for Christen, hoping to talk a minute about each and leaving a minute for intros and conclusions. Overall, since Christen had come prepared with a slideshow ready it only took about an hour for them to finish, even with said tangents. As she opens her folder to put away her page of notes she’d outlined, Tobin practically guffaws yet again at her work, “Do you already have flashcards prepared?”

 

Christen squints up at her, “I said, I work hard. They’re just over the first chapter of reading.”

 

“You already did the reading? We’ve barely even had a lecture,” Tobin is persistent she notices, with a competitive edge to her, “Please tell me you’ve been out doing fun things? It’s only been like three days of classes.”

 

“Four but,” She catches the way that Tobin is torn between laughing and rolling her eyes at the correction she makes and it makes her laugh herself, “Stop! I’ve been out doing things, I’m just a productive person that’s good at time management.”

 

“Oh really now?” Tobin seems like she’s challenging her, and she’s not certain if it’s just the competitive edge that Tobin has that she’s misreading or if there’s a little bit of flirtation hidden in her tone, “Like what?”

 

“Monday after class Julie, my roommate-”

 

Before she finishes her sentence, Tobin cuts her off, “I know, we met at lunch on Tuesday.”

 

“Right, Julie from lunch on Tuesday, we went out and explored campus, tried to get our bearings a little bit, had dinner with some people from our floor. Last night I went to a mixer with my sorority, and this weekend we’ve got our sisterhood retreat, I’m having lunch tomorrow before we leave with-”

 

“Okay, got it, proved your point,” Tobin is getting a bit giggly again, and she thinks that she missed out on Tobin teasing her a little bit, “I just don’t want you to be too serious about your first semester, I did that with soccer my first semester, tried to be too serious about it and missed out on a bunch of good times. You’ve only got four years here, make it count.”

 

“Alright grandma,” She tries to tease back a little, “Thanks for the words of wisdom.”

 

Tobin’s eyes glimmer a little before she glances down at her phone, they’ve only been here for about an hour and a half but she’s not sure how long Tobin has until she needs to be to class or practice or something. She glances back up to her with a smile on her face, “So Chris, how do you feel about coffee?”

 

-

 

Christen thinks that her weekend away was just what she needed to sort of solidify where she was and what to expect about Greek life. It felt kind of strange actually, getting to be around the girls when they could be themselves and show who they really were, rather than just talk about who they were.

 

They’d ended up somewhere near the ocean, soaking up one of the last few weeks of what Christen assumed to be the end of the summertime weather. A whole flurry of activities were arranged for her and she felt like she didn’t have a minute to breath much less sleep. She was definitely nervous going into it, not knowing anyone well enough to necessarily call them her friends but also excited at the prospect of spending a weekend with 200 or so potential new friends. Within moments of getting into a car with a group of strangers she felt herself relax quite a bit. The girls bounced jokes off of each other faster than she could keep track of and she could feel a sense of genuity within the walls of the packed SUV that she couldn’t seem to find in the superficial level of conversations she’d had thus far with other freshman.

 

Upon her arrival they’d been thrust into a whole slew of activities. They’d arrived at some sort of resort or camp that’d had cabins with bunk beds that made her feel like she was in a movie. She was in a room with the girls she’d driven there with plus another car full of girls. They’d eaten dinner outside around sunset and followed up in some sort of common room for a sisterhood competition activity, she’d found out that the carpools were preplanned and she’d be spending a lot of her time with her car in smaller group activities.

 

They’d had everything from a pinning ceremony to new member meetings to free time for outings to a chapter wide activity where they brainstormed ways to be more hands on with their philanthropy and wrote letters to the younger girls they supported. It’d been a whirlwind to say the least. Julie seemed just as exhausted (and excited) as she did when she got back to her room on Sunday afternoon.

 

As she collapses onto her bed after taking a nice, long shower, she grumbles into her pillow, “I feel like I could sleep for a whole day.”

 

“Me too,” She hears Julie mumble from her side of the room.

 

-

 

Monday rolls around faster than she wanted it to and she gets ready to jump back into her week. More Calculus, more programming, more poli sci, and more writing. The second week is turning out to be a little heavier, her fluffy entry level professors start to actually teach material and she finds out rather quickly that even in her first week of math and programming that she thought was pretty serious was just a couple days of quick introductions to the material, the real work started now. She planned her days carefully in her planner, scheduling in library time, lunch, and all her social activities by the hour just like she had in high school and stuck closely with it. Fortunately, she’d finally broken the social barrier in her math class, a girl named Alyssa who was also in her programming class had asked her if she wanted to grab lunch with a few of them after class that day and she was a bit relieved because there wasn’t much time allocated for group work so she hadn’t exactly had time to even introduce herself to her mathematical peers.

 

Alyssa turned out to be one of those silent but deadly types of personalities. She’d sat with her and another two guys whose names she didn’t catch but was sure she’d pick up eventually, but Alyssa didn’t say much and Christen started to be concerned that it was true, she’d picked a major chock full of socially awkward people until Alyssa had let out her first joke. Her humor was dry and sharp, easily looked over if you weren’t paying attention, but she was hilarious.

 

Alyssa was also ridiculously smart, she could tell just from sitting near her. She already knew that there’s two types of math majors, the ones who have to try really hard to just scrape by with adequate enough grades and the ones who were naturally smart and could just sit in class, not pick up their textbooks, and still ace tests. Alyssa however, was a rare hybrid like herself. Smart, but also worked hard, they were the most deadly type. She could tell simply by her vocabulary, the way she was quick with her words and how she spoke intelligently when she didn’t need to. She guesses that Alyssa is the type of person who texts with proper grammar and punctuation to even her closest of friends. Christen figures she’s the type of person that she should be friends with, or at least an acquaintance who will understand what she’s talking about when she needs to bitch about math.

 

Tuesday comes around quick enough and she’s strolling down the center aisle to find her seat in her poli sci lecture and spots a seat in the center that she aims to get to, she mutters “excuse me” to the girl sitting in the left most seat before moving to sit down.

 

“Too cool to sit by me Press?” Christen’s head snaps around when she hears Tobin’s voice, in her franticness to sit down she’d completely walked past Tobin who was sitting in a lefty desk at the edge of the aisle.

 

She smiles softly at Tobin, in the chaos of the start of her second week of class she’d almost forgotten about the girl and her stupid soft looking hair. Almost being the operative word, “Didn’t see you there.”

 

“You did walk right past me,” Tobin laughs in a way that pulls her mouth wide open and exposes her line of orthodontically perfect white teeth, “How was your weekend?”

 

“Pretty crazy, I went on a sorority retreat,” She plops down in the seat and it squeaks a bit, leading to Tobin laughing just a tiny bit more and making the smile on her face last a couple seconds longer, “How was yours?”

 

“Well we won,” She shrugs like it’s no big deal, “So pretty damn well I’d say.”

 

“Congratulations,” She smiles back but just as soon as she lets the word slip out the professor taps her mic as a test and class begins.’

 

She’s taking notes on her laptop when she gets the notification on the screen of her macbook, from Tobin herself.

 

_Lunch?_

 

Christen bites on her lip, she had already agreed to eat with her temporary big today after their discussion session. Even though she shouldn’t, she feels a little bad on the inside and she wants the opportunity to spend a little more time with Tobin but knows that she can’t cancel at this point. So she types out a response, hoping it sounds genuine.

 

_Can’t, I already made plans with one of my sorority sisters :(_

 

Christen glances out of the corner of her eye at Tobin to gauge her reaction, she thinks she sees her smile droop a little but isn’t quite sure if she’s hallucinating. Quickly she tries to recover with a follow up:

 

_Thursday?_

 

This time Tobin bites her lip, and she still looks a little disappointed, at least out of the corner of Christen’s eye.

 

_Tobin: We leave Thursday morning for our game_

 

Christen internally sighs, at least she hopes it’s internal and judging by the lack of a reaction from the people around her it is. She’s not really sure what to respond so she doesn’t, just turns her head to Tobin with a soft smile and a shrug and Tobin looks back at her with a similar expression.

 

Through class she can’t stop her brain from wandering, but tries even harder to stop it from hoping, if Tobin really was disappointed that she couldn’t eat with her that day or if she was just trying to be nice.

 

They still walk to the cafeteria together but they separate naturally when Christen runs into her sorority sister and Tobin heads for the tacos. She sits at a table that starts out to just be her and her sorority sister, Sofia, but gradually grows to fill with more and more people. Before she knows it, Christen is being reintroduced to sorority sisters and introduced to fraternity guys who stop by to flirt with some of the other girls, some of them bravely attempt to flirt with her too. She tries to be polite and feigns interest but every few minutes her eyes wander over to where she’d seen Tobin sit down after being greeted by a couple tall muscular guys she assumed were basketball players and she was joined later by some girls who she also assumed were on the soccer team with her.

 

Even though she’d only met Tobin a week before, she feels strange as she moves through the rest of the week without seeing her once. Initially she’d instinctively moved to sit in the same seat she had on Tuesday, hoping that Tobin would be there before realizing that she was already gone. In hopes of gaining a little bit of contact with her, she decides to send her a text before class is supposed to start.

 

_Want me to send you my notes from class?_

 

She’s not sure how Tobin keeps up with work while missing class so she hopes the message seems kind and thoughtful without being too random or seems like a desperate attempt for her to talk with her. Disappointingly, Tobin responds with a short message:

 

_Tobin: I’d really appreciate that! Thanks!_

 

Christen doesn’t really think there’s anything for her to respond really, so she doesn’t, but she makes sure to pull up Tobin’s email and send her the notes when class is over.

 

-

 

Sunday night, when Christen is getting ready for her chapter meeting, is when she next hears from Tobin. Unexpectedly she picks up her phone after it buzzes in the middle of her straightening her hair.

 

_Tobin: Any chance you wanna meet up to run through our presentation tomorrow?_

 

Christen had nearly forgotten that it was sneaking up on them since it wasn’t something she was that worried about, like they’d already decided the content was easy enough and pretty repetitive from high school so she didn’t spend much time dwelling on it. Over the weekend she’d gone to her first party on Friday night with Julie and on Saturday she’d gone tailgating and to a football game with some sorority sisters.

 

_Sure, are you free noon to two? If not I’m free after 4._

 

Tobin’s responses are a bit faster this night than they were the very first night and Christen is thankful for it.

_Tobin: I’ve got class until 2 but I could definitely make after 4 work?_

 

Christen nods at her phone even though nobody is around to see her, much less Tobin. Feeling a little brave, she types out her response.

 

_What if we did around 6? We could grab something to eat then do a runthrough or two after?_

 

Tobin’s response is a little less rapid this time, but when she looks down she decides that it was worth the wait.

 

_Tobin: You could come to my house and I could make spaghetti?_

 

Christen smiles a bit at her phone, trying not to read too much into it but is pretty satisfied with the response.

 

_Perfect_

 

Moments later Tobin sends her the address of her house and Christen types it into her phone, it’s a short eight minute walk from her dorm so she’s pretty satisfied with the proximity. She hears the door click as Julie walks out of the Jack and Jill bathroom they share with their neighbors, “Who ya texting?”

 

“Hmm?” Christen’s head snaps up, Julie is dressed well and has her makeup done for her own chapter meeting, it starts a half hour earlier than hers and the walk is a little farther so she’s ready a bit earlier than she is.

 

“Well you’ve got an awfully big smile on over,” Julie smirks at her as she slides on her jewellry to complete her outfit. She reminds herself again that she needs to be a little bit more discrete with her facial expressions.

 

“It’s nothing,” She shuts down quickly, “Just someone from class.”

 

It’s not a lie she thinks, not completely. Tobin is _from_ class.

 

“Well, lucky for you,” She grabs her bag to sling over her shoulder and double checks to make sure she’s got her ID card and phone one more time, “I’ve got to go now but I look forward to hearing about mystery boy from class when I get back.”

 

Christen freezes a bit, she hasn’t exactly told anyone about Tobin and she hasn’t exactly told Julie about the whole liking girls thing, and she certainly wasn’t planning on talking about the connection between the Tobin thing and the liking girls thing with Julie anytime soon, at least she didn’t plan to at least until she got a better read on Tobin.

 

So Julie sends her a smile and a wink as she slips out the door before Christen can respond.

 

-

 

Monday rolls around and luckily she thinks that Julie had forgotten about what she said before she left the previous night, or she at least forgot about it temporarily long enough to not pester her that night.

 

Christen heads to her room right after she gets out at four to an empty room. She’s not exactly sure where Julie is but she assumes she’s out studying or meeting up with sorority sisters, and she’s a little thankful for the silence, it gives her enough time to do an hours worth of reading for class before her anxiety creeps up her spine and she can’t focus anymore.

 

She knows she shouldn’t be concerned about what to wear to go meet a girl that she’s not even sure likes girls, much less her, but can’t stop tapping her pencil at a high speed against her desk as time ticks by, to the point where the sound starts to drive herself crazy.

 

So she decides to do what she does best, call her older sister and panic to her over the phone.

 

Tyler sounds happy and excited to hear her voice when she picks up and Christen is glad to hear that she doesn’t sound too busy. She keeps up with her chit chat but the longer she stares at her closet the more confused she gets.

 

“So what do you need my advice for?” Tyler asks over the line and Christen frowns, is she really that obvious even over the phone?

 

“How could you tell I needed your advice?”

 

“Chris, you’ve barely responded to any of my questions with more than two words,” She laughs over the line and suddenly her phone is buzzing, asking for her to switch to FaceTime instead of the phone call, she accepts quickly and Tyler’s face blows up on her screen, “Normally you talk a million miles per hour, so what’s going on?”

 

“Well,” Christen smiles weakly, glancing back once again at her selection of clothing, “Hypothetically, if you liked a girl, what would you wear if she invited you over to her house for dinner before studying but you’re not sure if she likes girls?”

 

Tyler smiles at her broadly through the phone, “Ooooooh, Christen’s got a crush! Wait until mom gets a load of this!”

 

Christen groans a little at the teasing, it’s exactly the same way that they would tease each other about crushes when they were in elementary school, “You are not telling mom.”

 

“Sounds like a pretty specific situation Chris,” Tyler suddenly seems like she’s gotten her fill of teasing before she picks back up at the seriousness of the situation, “How’d she ask you to come over? Like specifically.”

 

Christen recounts the details of the texts she’d sent, and Tyler seems a little more confused than when she started.

 

“So you asked about dinner, but she asked you to her house, that’s interesting,” Christen can see Tyler thinking about the situation over the call, “Do you think she’s just trying to be a cheap college student, save a couple bucks by not eating on campus?”

 

“No,” Christen shakes her head remembering what Tobin said about her meal plan, “She’s an athlete, they get unlimited meal points as part of their scholarship deal.”

 

Tyler whistles over the phone and wiggles her eyebrows at her, “So she’s an athlete, I want pictures of this girl when you get back, asap.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” She grumbles over her phone.

 

“I don’t know Chris, I think you’ve got yourself a definite maybe on this one,” She laughs back because she thought that Tyler would maybe be a little bit more helpful with this, like she’d secretly know Tobin’s intention behind her invite, “But I think you go casual, like black skinnies and your flowy black tank top, and the black leather jacket or the chunky gray cardigan if it’s cold. Seems like it’s something you could wear to class and seems put together but casual.”

 

After putting it on, they decide that the gray cardigan is the better option and pick out just the right amount of jewelry to make it look like she’s not trying to hard, she adds a little bit of blush to her cheeks to freshen up her makeup, a little powder on her T-zone and before she knows it it’s 5:45 and she should leave soon. But not too early, she doesn’t want to seem too eager.

 

It’s just then that Julie walks in, a large guy following her into the room, like a really large guy, football large so Christen rushes Tyler off the line.

 

“Hey my roommate just got here, and I should go,” Her sister nods and winks at her in understanding.

 

“Text me updates!” She yells back quickly and blows her a kiss over the phone, “Bye, love ya!”

 

“You too Ty,” Christen responds before the screen goes black. She grabs her backpack from the floor and Julie and the big guy stop whispering out of respect after walking into her conversation.

 

“Chris, this is Zach,” Julie points between the two of them, “Zach, this is my roommate Christen.”

 

Christen offers a wave to the tall man who takes a seat at her desk when Julie offers, “Nice to meet you.”

 

“You too,” He responds politely enough to make Christen smile.

 

“We’re gonna study for psychology,” Julie explains, “We can go somewhere else if you were going to be here though?”

 

“No, no,” She smiles, thankful that Julie is the type of respectable roommate who at least offers to leave when she was crashing in on their room, “I’m meeting someone to study at six myself.”

 

Julie nods in understanding, gives her a little knowing smile even, “Well, I’ll see you later then?”

 

“Yeah,” She waves in response, checking to make sure she’s got everything she needs again, “See you later.”

 

-

 

Christen walks a little slowly to Tobin’s and ends up arriving at 6:03 which seems sufficient enough to her that she’s not too eager but not late. She knocks at the front door but the door is open with a screen door shut in front of it. She spotted two cars in the driveway so she’s not exactly sure how many of Tobin’s roommates are home, or even how many roommates she even has.

 

“It’s open Chris!” She can hear a faint yell through the screen and she takes that as her sign to walk in, noticing the pile of shoes by the door she slides her own off. Taking a look straight in front of her and also to the left, she spies what looks like a kitchen and decides that the left is probably her best bet. The strong scent of garlic wafts through the house and even though it’s something as simple as spaghetti she’s excited at the prospect of not eating cafeteria food for the first time in three weeks.

 

“It smells great in here,” Christen compliments at the sight of Tobin in the kitchen.

 

“Thanks!” Her grin is wide, like always Christen thinks, and she reaches out to pull her into a hug. Unsuspectingly, she’s pulled in closer to Tobin than she’d ever been before. Tobin only wraps one arm around her shoulder since the other is holding a loaf of bread but Christen’s arms wrap around her waist. Somewhere buried beneath the scent of tomato sauce and garlic in the kitchen, Christen can smell the fresh scent of coconut and vanilla on Tobin’s hair and skin. It’s a subtle combination, and she’s not really sure what exactly she’d expected Tobin to smell like but she’s pleasantly surprised as she pulls away from the short hug.

 

Judging by Tobin’s own outfit, however, she probably shouldn’t have spent much time worrying about what to wear. She’s got a pair of loose fitting black joggers with a USA logo on them and a Carolina blue Tarheels shirt on. Even with her hair pulled up in a looped bun, loose pants, and a baggy t-shirt she can’t help but think that Tobin looks really nice. Despite it not being a polished look, like she prefers for herself, she likes how comfortable Tobin looks making her way around the kitchen, popping bread into the toaster and licking the spoon she’d been using to stir Ragu store bought sauce with.

 

“Long time no see,” Christen finds a seat at the island after Tobin motions for her to sit.

 

“Long time no see,” Tobin confirms with a nod and a smile, “Thanks for the notes by the way, they’re much better than the volleyball player’s. Want a glass of water? We don’t really have anything else but milk, we’re not big soda drinkers around here.”

 

“Water’s great,” Christen confirms, watching Tobin pull out two glasses and pour some cold water from a Brita filter, “And thanks for dinner by the way.”

 

“No problem,” She nods in response as she pours sauce back over the strained noodles, “I hope you don’t mind eating here, I’m just a little sick of eating like crap since we’ve been eating at hotels all weekend.”

 

“No, thanks for having me,” She didn’t even think how nice it would be to have something so simple as store bought noodles and pasta sauce for dinner, but just the thought of something being cooked makes her feel a little bit better, “I didn’t even realize but I haven’t cooked a meal in three weeks. It’s a bit strange.”

 

“Well you’re always welcome to use our kitchen if you want,” Tobin offers as she pulls down some plates from a cabinet, “I know how it is to eat in a cafeteria every night for a year.”

 

“Thanks,” She nods in understanding, feeling overwhelmed by Tobin’s simple kindness yet again, “How was your game by the way?”

 

Tobin’s head bobs in a strange satisfied but not way, “Okay I guess, we won.”

 

“That’s good, right?” Christen’s not sure why Tobin doesn’t seem completely happy with the result.

 

“Yeah, I just got a little frustrated,” She shrugs slightly, “Got a yellow card I could have easily avoided.”

 

“That’s fine though,” Christen offers reassuringly back, “It’s not a red so no big deal.”

 

“Wasn’t the best foot to put forward for the scouts though,” Tobin twirls her pasta around a fork carefully.

 

“What scouts?” Christen’s even more confused as Tobin sighs.

 

“How much do you know about soccer Christen?” Tobin’s a bit more serious than she usually is, normally she’s pretty happy go lucky when she talks about soccer around Christen.

 

“My sister plays at Harvard so I’ve seen my fair share of games I think,” She doesn’t necessarily consider herself a soccer genius but she’s also not completely incompetent when it comes to the game.

 

She watches yet as Tobin nods her head gently, “You ever watch any national team games?”

 

“Not really, at least not since my sister left for college.”

 

“Well,” Tobin shrugs as she leans back in her seat, abandoning her pasta in favor of a sip from her water, “They bombed at the World Cup this summer, lost 4-0 to Brazil in the semis but managed to swing back to get third place. The coach is getting fired.”

 

“And?”

 

“And I’m trying to make the Olympic team this summer.”

 

Christen nearly chokes on the pasta she has in her mouth hearing this, gathering composure and after taking a sip of water, “And that’s a possibility?”

 

Tobin squints at her across the table, “Yeah, a high possibility apparently.”

 

“Well I don’t mean for this to sound rude or anything,” She points across the table at Tobin with her fork, “I didn’t know you were so good.”

 

Tobin blushes and Christen wants to know if it’s because she’s humble or if it’s because it was _Christen_ who complimented her, Tobin seems quick to change the topic and doesn’t seem like she wants to dwell on it, “So yeah, just not the best foot to put forward. I don’t know, it’s hard to know they’re watching and not choke up.”

 

She’s not sure if she should push farther and she wants to make a teasing comment about not choking up at the actual Olympics but decides against pushing it. Instead she brings up something meaningless to talk about, asks her something dumb about her major and the other classes she’s taking because she’s not really sure what a Com major entails. While she listens to Tobin speaking, she wonders if it was a mistake. The passion, frustrated passion but passion none the less, slips off of Tobin’s face. It’s almost like she’s bored, like she’s talking to a great aunt she hasn’t seen in years about what she’s up to and is forced to give the PG details about how great college is or something.

 

Needless to say, Christen’s a bit disappointed with her own actions, especially after Tobin finishes telling her about her classes and asks Christen in turn about her own. She’s discovered very quickly that when people ask her what her math classes are about she has a difficult time explaining things in layman's terms to people who’ve never even taken a calculus course before, much less someone she can talk to about or explain Vector Calculus and for-loops.

 

But she does think that Tobin’s trying, she always smiles at her when they make eye contact across the table after and tries to be interested in what she’s explaining even though Christen can tell she has no clue what she’s talking about. Tobin dumps their dishes in the sink when they finish, abandoning them for later along with the pot and strainer she’d been using earlier.

 

Really it doesn’t take long for them to run through their project, they quickly cover their talking points before doing the ten minute run through and time themselves. Once is more than sufficient for the importance of the project, especially considering how smoothly it ran. For how disinterested Tobin had seemed when talking about her major, she’d come well prepared for the run through. She also asks Christen a few questions about the notes she’d sent her and if she wouldn’t mind sending some to her the next time she misses class for an away game.

 

Christen’s a nice person, probably too nice, and a little bit of a pushover she found in high school when it came to people using her for her academic skills, so she probably would have said yes anyway. However, she swallows hard when Tobin thanks her, smoothing her hands over top of her skinny jeans, brown eyes are boring into hers in appreciation and she knows that she had no choice but agreeing and is rewarded with Tobin’s wide toothy grin once again.

 

So yes, it’s far too soon and she doesn’t know Tobin nearly well enough to excuse the tingles that sit low in her stomach when Tobin laughs at her dumb jokes, or the way that her cheeks flush when Tobin compliments her, or the way that she fumbles over her words and can’t retaliate quick enough when Tobin teases her jokingly.

 

Christen’s barely been at Tobin’s rented house for an hour when they’re finished, Tobin looks up at her and nods towards the living room, “Wanna watch a movie or something? One of my roommates got a new TV this summer for her birthday. Unless you’ve got work to get done or a sorority thing to go to?”

 

“No I,” Christen feels her mouth go dry a little bit at the invitation, “I don’t really have anything going on for the rest of the night, and I’m guessing my roommate’s future boyfriend is probably still in our room so it might be nice to buy some time.”

 

“Cool,” At this point Tobin is standing in the doorway separating the living room from the dining area and kitchen combo room, “You can pick.”

 

“No, no,” Christen immediately freezes and a few thoughts run through her head, she can’t possibly pick the movie, she’s too indecisive. She can’t pick anything too romantic, doesn’t bode well with scary movies, doesn’t know Tobin’s sense of humor well enough to pick a comedy, “It’s your house, you pick.”

 

“You’re the guest,” Again, she thinks she sees a little bit of a twinkle of enjoyment coming from Tobin’s eyes, probably at the panicky tone of her voice, “And I like everything so it’d be impossible to pick something I don’t like.”

 

She watches as Tobin flops down onto a love seat facing the TV, there’s another three seater couch but someone’s laundry is stacked in neatly folded piles across it so she has no choice but to sit next to Tobin as she’s handed the remote. With Netflix open her options are nearly infinite until she sees that _16 Candles_ comes up as a suggestion and she can’t resist clicking on it.

 

“Nice choice,” Her head snaps to Tobin who’d been silent, flicking through her phone while she internally debated her Netflix choices, “I love this movie, seen it a million times.”

 

Christen clams up at this statement and can’t help but opening her mouth, “Oh, we can watch something el-”

 

But before she can finish her statement Tobin laughs at her with that dumb twinkle that she’s not sure whether she loves or hates yet again, “Chris, let’s watch this, I just said I love this movie.”  
  
Christen looks to make eye contact with her just to make sure she’s being truthful, all the while a little flustered at the nickname that she hasn’t been called in person since she’d started school really, “Okay.”

 

The juvenileness that’s still rooted in her tries not to blush when the seen of Caroline in the shower that she’d forgotten about flashes across the screen, she knows that if she were at home that whichever one of her friends that was sitting next to her probably would have elbowed her in the side teasingly, but she also resists her curious urge to glance at Tobin’s face to try and gauge her reaction to the scene.

 

Sometime in the middle of the movie, Christen forgets which part exactly, Tobin gets up from the couch, stating that she’ll be right back. She can hear some sort of rustling from the kitchen and when she comes back it’s with a fresh bowl of lightly salted popcorn that she holds in her lap but offers to Christen. Tobin sits with her feet up on the edge of the coffee table with her legs spread apart to cradle the bowl of popcorn in between, her thigh lightly resting on top of Christen’s own crossed legs. Every time she reaches over her hand brushes softly against Tobin’s skin so she tries to limit her popcorn intake.

 

Tobin laughs almost the entire movie and it’s infectious, so Christen does too. When the movie is over Tobin gets up to turn the lights on and frowns at the half full bowl of popcorn, “Do you not like popcorn?”

 

“Oh, I do, it’s just,” Christen tries to figure out how she’s going to cover this one up, “I was still full from the spaghetti I guess. Thanks though.”

 

“No problem,” Tobin just flops back down on the couch, closing her eyes and Christen realizes how tired she looks, after all she’s just come back from an away game last night and probably had to catch up on class work when she got back too.

 

“Um, I should probably go,” She states quietly and Tobin lifts one eyelid open to look at her from where she’s rested her head (probably) uncomfortably against the armrest.

 

Tobin shakes her head gently, “You don’t have to go if you don’t want yet.”

 

“No I should,” She tries to think quickly of any and all reasons she should give Tobin so that she gets out of her hair, “I need to shower and finish some writing for my other class tomorrow, but I’ve had fun tonight. Thanks for inviting me over.”

 

“No problem,” Tobin moves to stand up, putting her hands in the pockets of her sweats, “Did you walk?”

 

“Yeah,” Christen nods, looking through her backpack one more time to make sure she’s got everything, even though she knows she does.

 

“I’ll give you a ride back then,” Tobin starts walking to the kitchen, “Just let me grab my keys.”

 

“No, Tobin, you don’t have to,” Christen resists again, but begins to think that maybe she should stop resisting so fervently to everything nice Tobin says or does, “Really, you’re probably really tired from traveling. It’s a short walk.”

 

Tobin doesn’t seem to be bothered though and slides on a pair of shoes by the front door, “It’s dark Christen, I’ll drive you. It’s no problem.”

 

“Okay,” Christen takes a deep breath in, “Thanks.”

 

-

 

Tobin drops Christen off at the curb outside of her dorm and bids her farewell with an “I’ll see you tomorrow” through the open window of her car. Christen gives one wave back as she walks to scan into the front door.

 

Really she wanted to take a walk for some fresh air, do a lap or two of the building or something but she couldn’t with Tobin dropping her off as close to the front door as possible. Because of this she figures she’s got at most a thirty second elevator ride to gather her thoughts and her composure before she has to face Julie and pretend like she’d just been out studying.

 

When she opens the door, Julie is sitting on her bed, legs crossed, book in lap, with soft acoustic music playing out of her phone. She smiles widely up at Christen as she enters the room and welcomes her back, asking her how her night was.

 

Christen just shrugs in response, tells her she was out studying, and starts to strip her jeans off in favor of a pair of pajama shorts before she plops on her bed. She knows she probably shouldn’t but she is just a bit curious about the guy who Julie had brought back to their room before she’d left earlier in the night, “So, who was that guy?”

 

Julie shifts a little uncomfortably and Christen can tell that she’s trying to repress the smile  on her face, “His name’s Zach, he’s a psych major. He came to get some notes from a class he’d missed, he’s on the football team.”

 

“Oooh,” Christen smiles back at her roommate teasingly, she wiggles her eyebrows a little for good measure, “Football team, huh?”

 

“Yeah,” Julie looks down at her lap, “He’s cute but I’m still trying to figure out if he’s actually nice or if he’s just faking it. You know how guys can be.”

 

Christen swallows thickly, nods, and averts eye contact with Julie, nodding her head like she knows and mentally noting to herself that she should probably tell Julie soon sooner rather than later so that she doesn’t end up in a horrible spiral of lies or denial.

 

“What about you though,” Julie laughs in response, not letting her off the hook, “Did you have a study sesh with that boy you were texting last night.”

 

Well, she thinks, soon might just be sooner than she initially thought. Taking a moment to figure out how she wants to phrase this and choose her words well, “You remember that girl Tobin?”

 

“The one we had lunch with a couple weeks ago?” Julie asks in response.

 

“Yeah,” Christen nods, trying to read her expression from across the room, “We have a presentation tomorrow. She invited me over to her house to run through it.”

 

“Oh,” Julie smiles across the room at her, “Who were you texting then?”

 

“Um,” She stammers, trying to buy herself a little more time but at the same time she thinks to herself, screw it. Trying to put a little emphasis on her words, to see if Julie catches on, she responds honestly, “I was texting _Tobin_ last night too.”

 

“Oh,” Julie squeeks in embarrassment and just when Christen thinks that she hasn’t caught on quite yet, her face twists in realization and understanding, “So there’s no boy?”

 

“There’s no boy,” She laughs in response at the way that Julie has suddenly gone a little tense, “And there won’t be.”

 

Christen’s calm demeanor must have rubbed off on Julie because she smiles understandingly, “So Tobin?”

 

“Yeah, Tobin,” She shrugs to herself and tries to find something else to avert her gaze to but comes up empty.

 

Suddenly Julie pulls a 180 and is grinning widely, in a way similar to the faces her sisters and her would grin at each other when they’d talk about the people they liked, “And she invited you over? That’s good, right?”

 

Christen can’t help but smile a bit knowing now that she doesn’t have to just rely on Tyler to vent her frustrations to but also lets out a bit of a groan because she’s still utterly confused about Tobin. Does she have any reason to think that she likes her too? No.

 

“I don’t know Jules,” She half smiles at her, begining to recount the details, each part that she mentions seems a little more confusing than the last.

 

“I don’t know Chris,” Julie had spent the better part of their conversation going back and forth, debating with her whether each of the subtle things Tobin had done or said were flirtatious or just friendly, “Why are girls so confusing?”

 

Christen can’t help but laugh as she leans back, head ready to hit the pillow, “You’re telling me Jules.”

 

-

 

Christen’s days and weeks fill up quicker than expected. The new member period of joining her sorority has her busy more days than not, she’s attending meetings and going to philanthropies and has signed up to be on a committee that meets once a week. There’s mixers and unofficial events she gets invited so she’s busy more nights than not. When she’s not busy she likes to find time to hang out with Julie, who’s just as occupied with her own sorority but also Zach.

 

She eats lunch with Tobin when she doesn’t have plans to eat with sorority sisters or Julie. When they don’t eat together, Tobin joins a table that rotates in and out new athletes every few minutes and she feels bad for two reasons that their eating patterns is sporadic and unpredictable. One being that she doesn’t want Tobin to think that she ranks low on her social life totem pole and two being that the less time she has to spend with Tobin, the less predictable it is to tell if there’s any possibility that she likes her.

 

Julie and her talk about it every once in awhile but there’s not really any new developments in the two weeks it’s been since she’d been over to her house for dinner. When Tobin’s not around and Christen is buried in math and sorority stuff, she’s pretty content to just let Tobin sit in the back of her mind as the girl she’ll probably never be able to have, but when she’s around Tobin, especially when she’s sitting eating lunch with her, just the two of them, it’s a different story. It’s almost like she doesn’t want to let any moment go. She wants to know everything, the more she hears about Tobin’s life the more she wants to know.

 

So it’s Tuesday and Tobin texts her asking if she wants to come over to her house tomorrow night to study for their upcoming exam. She stares at her phone, biting her lip gently, torn a little inside. There’s a calculus test on Friday that she needs to study for, which she’d planned to study for during her free night on Wednesday. Truth be told, she’s pretty much finished studying for this class, the material is so redundant to her high school classes that it really hadn’t taken much effort. However, Tobin’s offer is almost as enticing as she is and Christen thinks she can spare an hour or two to run through her flash cards with Tobin.

 

-

 

This time Tobin’s got chicken tacos prepared, with small bowls of lettuce, tomato, cheese, and sour cream on the counter when she shows up to her house. The second she walks in the door she can feel her mouth begin to water at the scent of the house, she’d been treating her body pretty poorly in the franticness of her study week. She’s been eating less than she should, drinking more coffee than she should, and hasn’t been able to get in a yoga session or run every day like she likes.

 

While they eat, Christen starts to run through her flashcards, comparing them to Tobin’s and occasionally Tobin will add an extra tidbit or two. At some point while they’re talking at the kitchen table Tobin gets up to grab their dishes and drops them in the sink again and Christen starts forming a web with their flash cards, explaining how they’re all interrelated so that they get an extra level of understanding in anticipation of their essay question.

 

Christen already feels like she’s got the information down as Tobin goes through to copy down some notes from the web in her notebook so she pulls out her calculus book to squeeze in some work before cleaning up the delicately placed web on the table. Tobin give her a half smile before she looks down to focus on the problem at hand.

 

She’s going back and forth doing some problems, she feels okay about most of the material but she’s having a difficult time with deciphering when to use polar coordinates and when to use spherical coordinates. For some reason she can only figure out the correct one to use half of the time.

 

Deep into her problems she looks up and Tobin’s still studying, doing work of her own and she offers that Christen can stay however long she wants, it’s quiet and there’s a lot of table space so she accepts the offer.

 

Problem after problem, she loses track of the time. Somewhere around nine she’s brought out of her zone when the front door opens and closes shut and the sounds of female voices fill the main floor of the house.

 

“Tobs?” A husky voice calls out followed by a more familiar voice, “Ya here loser?”

 

“Kitchen,” Tobin replies slightly louder than her normal tone as she shuffles some flash cards into a pile.

 

Two brunettes walk through the kitchen doorway, Christen is surprised for two reasons, one is because the brunette on the left was definitely not who she would have matched the voice she’d heard moments earlier to and two because Kelley is rushing full force towards her for a hug.

 

Responding with a soft oomph, she hears Kelley squeal in her ear and chastise Tobin lightly, “Tobin! I didn’t know you knew Christen!”

 

“Oh,” Tobin falters, shaking her head a little, “I forgot you guys were in the same sorority.”

 

“Kel! I didn’t know you live with Tobin!” Truth be told she had _completely_ forgotten that Kelley was on the soccer team considering she felt like the only time she ever saw Kelley around was a sorority stuff.

Kelley lets her go with a loud smacking kiss on the top of her head, Tobin points behind her back, “Chris that’s Alex, Al this is Christen.”

 

“Nice to meet you,” Alex offers before she even turns her back, her eyes are sweeping up and down Christen’s body when she manages to turn around, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

 

Christen tries to let the statement not affect her, but she can’t help but be taken back a bit from it. Before she gets her hopes up, she tries to squash her feelings, reminding herself that Kelley lives her too and it’s just as possible she heard about her that way. Christen wishes she’d been able to say the same but truth be told she hasn’t even heard Tobin mention anyone by the name of Alex before, “Nice to meet you too.”

 

“Tobs, how long has this taco meat been sitting out?” Kelley asks, interrupting anything that Alex would have possibly responded with, not that Christen knows there would have been anything else to have been said.

 

“Like two hours,” Tobin responds before her head snaps up, “Don’t eat it Kelley.”

 

“What I’m not gonna die!” She shouts back and Tobin sighs deeply, letting her head droop to the side.

 

“Don’t eat it Kel,” Alex agrees, sighing as well, “There’s plenty of other food you can eat in the  fridge.”

 

“Well,” Kelley glances over the full table, noting the silence in the room, “I guess I won’t bother you two nerds too much, looks like you’re actually busy. Tobin next week there’s no way you’re getting out of dinner with us, even if we have to drag your study buddy and flashcards with us.”

 

“I know, I know,” Tobin mutters as she flips through flash cards again, but Christen knows she’s faking it, she’s watched her go through the stack twice already with ease and Christen is not exactly sure why she keeps flipping through them like she doesn’t already know them, “Night Kel, Al. See you tomorrow.”

 

“Night!” They chorus together as they leave the room.

 

Christen digs back into her textbook, refocusing on where she’d left off as Tobin looks up at her once more before turning back to her own work.

 

There’s so much information she feels she needs to know that the time flies by rather quickly. She’s not exactly sure what time it is when Tobin knocks out, resting her head on her arms, claiming a ten minute power nap that lasts more like an hour she’s willing to guess. Christen would be lying if she said she missed the buzzing of Tobin’s phone, a text from Alex flashing up on the screen upside down from where Christen is sat. She freezes a bit upon seeing something that makes her breath catch a little.

 

_She’s cute_

 

That’s all it says, and if Christen weren’t a little more absorbed in her work and a little nervous that Tobin would wake and see that she’d seen the text that she might take more time to think through the implications of what the text could mean. So instead she tries to channel the jolt of energy she feels back into her work.

 

At some point Tobin wakes and stands up and Christen thinks she can hear the kitchen sink running and the clanking of dishes. She’s not sure when the water stops but she knows it’s some point before a pair of hands land softly on her shoulders, startling her into a jump.

 

Tobin’s calming voice chuckles out a laugh and an apology as her thumbs start to knead into her shoulders but somehow Christen’s body becomes more tense at the unexpected touch, “Chris, it’s almost one.”

 

Christen lets out a groan and she’s not entirely sure if it’s at the statement that it’s hit the wee hours of the morning or at the feeling of Tobin’s thumbs slipping in and out of the neckline of her shirt, “Oh my God, I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry, I should-”

 

Tobin cuts her off before she finishes her sentence, “We should get some sleep, you can spend the night here if you want.”

 

“Oh Tobin, no I should go home and finish these last two problems, I need to shower in the morning before class and I don’t have any-”

 

“First of all you’re not walking home right now, and my car is trapped in the driveway by Kelley and Alex’s” Christen feels momentarily like she would do anything that Tobin told her to with her hands rubbing circles on her shoulders like they are, “Either I can drop you off tomorrow morning before class or you can shower here, borrow some of my clothes. Plus, I’ve got my queen size bed from home and my own room, I’m sure your back could use a break from those rubber matresses in the freshman dorms.”

 

“You don’t mind?” Christen glances back over her shoulder at Tobin, she can feel her eyes drooping shut from exhaustion.

 

“Not at all,” Tobin takes a step back, letting her hands fall and leaving enough room for Christen to push back her chair to stand up. Tobin motions the way with her head, moving to turn the lights off as they walk through to the stairs. She follows Tobin up to the second door on the right upstairs.

 

She glances over Tobin’s room as she opens dresser drawers, her room is pretty bare, just a bed, dresser, closet, and a desk. It’s very tidy though, even the bed is made which surprises her. There are plain gray sheets on the bed with white and black throw pillows on top. Picture frames litter most of the surfaces, a lot look like pictures of her with her family but a few are with Kelley and Alex and some are team pictures, “Are these your siblings?”

 

Tobin looks back over her shoulder at the picture she’s referring to, “Yeah, my sister Katie is on the left, and Perry and Jeffrey are on the right.”

 

“It’s a really nice picture,” Tobin notes that they’re all smiling widely, happy as can be, in front of the ocean and a little bit pink from the sun. Their arms are all overlapping, holding each other close.

 

“Thanks,” Tobin holds out a hand with a t-shirt and shorts for her, “Bathroom is to the left out of the room, there’s some face wash on the counter near the toothbrush holder if you want to wash your face. There’s some extra toothbrushes in the top drawer too.”

 

“Okay,” Christen nods sheepishly, suddenly feeling bad about overstaying so late, “I’m sorry about this by the way, I completely lost track of time.”

 

“No worries, it happens,” Despite it being so late, or rather early, Tobin’s smiles is just as wide as it is after she drinks her coffee during their class together.

 

Christen takes the cue of Tobin turning around to peel of her sweatshirt as a sign to head to the bathroom and takes her time to gather herself without trying to hog the bathroom, although she does take a solid minute simply to grasp the edge of the bathroom counter and take a deep breath to try and shake away the feeling of Tobin’s gentle shoulder massage earlier.

 

When she returns to Tobin’s room she feels as exhausted as ever but with thoughts of the text message she’d overseen combined with the shoulder massage tangled in with the overall confusion of what all happened tonight and how she’d ended up spending the night all running through her brain. What she certainly doesn’t need in that moment is the clear visual of Tobin sat skimming through her phone in a black t-shirt and short plaid pajama shorts without a bra on. She sits on the other side of the bed as Tobin gets up to use the bathroom herself, it’s not very long by the time she returns and silently turns off the light on the way back to the bed. Christen’s already got the sheets pulled up to her chin when she comes back.

 

She feels Tobin shift back and forth a few times in search of comfort before she feels a hand land gently but purposefully in the middle of her back, “Chris, did you let your roommate know you were spending the night?”

 

Christen closes her eyes upon hearing Tobin’s soft, tired voice, “No, thanks for reminding me, she’d probably be worried if she wakes up to see I didn’t come home.”  
  
Her phone lights up the room as she lets Julie know that she’s staying the night and just when she finishes, thinking that she’s safe to let her body drift into sleep Tobin’s hand grazes her back once again, “You’re not cold are you? I could grab you a sweatshirt or something.”

 

“I’m fine, thanks though,” She rolls over onto her back, tilting her head to give Tobin a small smile through the dark.

“Okay,” Tobin yawns into the back of her arm as she lays on her back, “Just checking, you looked kinda cold with the sheets pulled up.”

 

“I’m fine, really,” She feels that tingle in the bottom of her stomach again, sitting there fluttering at the sight of Tobin sleepy and eyes half shut.

 

“Okay, night Chris.”

 

“Night Tobin.”

 

-

 

Christen wakes the following morning to the sound of Tobin’s alarm accompanied by a loud groan and the noise of a hand brushing over her nightstand in search of her phone. The buzzing and ringing doesn’t stop though and Christen rolls over, seeing the object lighting up in the middle of their pillows.

 

“Here,” She reaches over Tobin’s shoulder, passing her the ringing phone.

 

“Huh?” Tobin looks more than confused as she accepts the phone from Christen’s hand, turning from her side onto her back again, “Must’ve fallen asleep with it in the bed?”

 

Christen giggles at her continued confusion and tiredness as she watches Tobin try to rub the sleep from her eyes, it’s seven just now and their class starts at nine. Using her elbows she pushes herself up and stretches her hands to touch her toes.

 

“Oh my God,” Christen hears Tobin mutter as she looks up at her, before rolling over onto her side, the way she repeats this first statement startles her, making her think that something’s wrong, “Oh. My. God.”

 

“What?” She snaps her head back in wonder and concern.

 

“You’re a morning person,” Tobin’s groaning into her pillow at this point and Christen can’t help but laugh at her reaction, “You’re a morning person and you’re taking my sheets from me. Mean.”

 

A smile graces her face as she lays back down against the pillow from the night before, letting the sheets loosen back up so that Tobin can pull them higher once again. Tobin’s toe is pressing into the bottom of her calf and she’s not sure if Tobin notices it or not but she settles down, responding to Julie’s concerned text and adding some details from the night before as well.

 

“Do you want to shower here or do you want me to ask Kelley and Alex to move their cars?” Tobin mumbles from behind her and she drops her phone down closer to the bed in hopes that Tobin’s stirring head doesn’t see what she’s been typing out to her roommate

 

“No, I don’t want to bother them,” She turns her head to make eye contact with Tobin, who smiles back at her.

 

“Okay well, there’s shampoo, conditioner, body wash in the shower, feel free to use whatever,” Tobin finally pushes herself out of bed as Christen glances down at her phone, 7:15, “Do you want a sweater or a t-shirt or something? Or if you want we could leave early and walk by your place on the way to class but-”

 

Christen cuts her off for two reasons, the first being that her apartment is definitely in the opposite direction of where their class is and it’d take at least an extra 20 minutes plus time for her to change, the second being that she really wouldn’t mind wearing one of Tobin’s sweaters for the day, “A sweater would be great Tobin. Thanks.”

 

“No problem,” She pulls out two hangers for Christen to see, “Black or white?”

 

Both are pretty plane, chunky, but she thinks the white one might potentially be a bit too see through for the black bra she had with her, “Black.”

 

“Okay,” Tobin takes the black sweater off the hanger and tosses it on the edge of the bed as Christen gets up, grabbing her folded black jeans from the previous day and moving to walk to the bathroom.

 

When she gets out Tobin’s not in her room so she heads downstairs, following the scent of coffee in hopes that it’s Tobin and not one of the other girls living here. As she gets closer she can hear the sound of Tobin talking with someone, Alex she decides by the sounds of the raspiness of the other girl. It sounds like Tobin’s explaining how Christen ended up spending the night and Alex lets out an exasperated sigh, mumbling something about borrowing cars or moving cars and car keys.

 

As she pokes her head through the doorway the conversation ceases immediately and the two girls smile at her, one a little more forced than the other.

 

“Coffee? Cereal?” Tobin offers, nodding to the two boxes on the counter. Alex looks like she’s just about finished and dumps her left over milk down the drain before slipping open the top rack of the dishwasher to drop it in.

 

“I’ve got to run,” Christen thinks Alex means it literally when she says it, she’s dressed head to toe in workout clothes, “Nice meeting you Christen. See you later.”

 

Before she has time to respond Alex is already out of the kitchen and Tobin is shouting a “Bye Al!” from the refrigerator where she’s pulling out some milk.

 

She shrugs and turns back to Tobin, “Both please.”

 

-

 

Christen feels like she barely makes it through Thursday and Friday with her tests, she’d managed to swing a quick lunch with Tobin after their exam but dipped out early to get some studying in before her afternoon class. The calculus exam had gone well enough but not great she thinks and even though it’s only eleven when she finishes she heads back to her room with every intention of collapsing onto her bed for her first nap of the semester.

 

An hour and a half later she wakes to a few text messages, two separate ones from Kelley and Sofia asking her about some party later that night, one from Julie letting her know she’s going to grab a late lunch and asking if she wanted to join, and one from Tobin asking her how her exam went. Her head feels warm and fuzzy knowing that something inside Tobin cared enough to ask her how it’d gone, so she picks that one to respond to first since it’d been over an hour. All of Tobin’s responses are warm and kind, understanding when she voices her frustration over the details of some of the problems but as the conversation is fizzling out she decides it would probably be best to meet up with Julie for some food.

 

-

 

The night finds her trying to pick out a sufficient outfit for the frat party they’re headed to. Julie’s got one of her own sorority sisters over to get ready and Christen had asked one of the girls she’d gotten pretty close with from her pledge class, Morgan, to get ready for the night. The group seems to get along well in the small room, offering makeup touch ups to each other and outfit advice that Christen appreciates.

 

Julie knows that Zach’s going to be there and has been trying to pick out an outfit for the past two days while Christen’s been studying, Moe’s also set her eyes on an athlete that’s going to be at the party so they’re talking about that. Sofia and Kelley have added them in on group chats, promising to let them know when they’d arrived so the other girls didn’t have to worry about showing up too early to the party.

 

The walk isn’t too bad, Christen had the foresight to opt for a stable pair of low heeled chunky sandals to save her feet for the night. It was pretty obvious which house they were supposed to be at, music could be heard from the street and people were milling about with blue and red Solo cups on the front lawn.

 

When they walk in the front door they’re expectantly hit with the smell of beer and sweat, it doesn’t take herself and Moe long to find Kelley and Sofia considering Kelley is boisterously holding a solo cup above her head in what she assumes is celebration of defeating two large men twice the size of her in a game of beer pong. Her partner, a girl around the same height with dirty blonde hair pulls her into a celebratory hug, barely missing a slosh of Kelley’s cup that sends a small amount of beer spilling out of the side. The hug lingers a bit too long and Christen thinks it’s probably because of the alcohol but then she sees the girl she doesn’t know press a kiss against Kelley’s ear before they pull away.

 

Oh, Christen thinks to herself, that’s nice to know. She tucks that little detail in the back of her mind.

 

Julie and her sorority sister part ways with the two of them in sights of their own sorority sisters as Moe and her head in the opposite direction. Kelley is warm with a tint of pink to her cheeks as they approach and she’s thrust into a hug. Sofia and a few of their other sorority sisters are lingering in the background, talking to each other and boys that she doesn’t know.

 

“Chris! Have you met my girlfriend Emily?” Kelley motions over her shoulder with her thumb to the girl who was high fiving the guys who’d just finished downing some beers, who looked less affected by the alcohol and more like their pride had just been bruised.

 

“No, I haven’t,” She smiles back at the tipsy girl.

 

“Em, this is Christen,” Kelley tugs back at the girl’s hand, pulling her away from the two guys with a parting wave, “Emily this is Christen, she’s the girl I told you about from my sorority.”

 

“Oh Christen nice to-” Emily had been pulled into Kelley’s left side, had her right arm wrapped around Kelley’s back, she glances down at her left in drunk confusion but Christen laughs at her, reaching out to gently squeeze the girl’s left hand rather than shake it, “Nice to meet you.”

 

“You too,” She feels a hand on her back, Moe’s back by her side offering her a solo cup.

 

“It’s just beer,” Moe tells her in a soft shouting tone, “Got it from the keg so it’s safe.”

 

“Thanks,” Christen nods and before she can say anything else she watches Moe traipse away towards a tall dark guy, who she supposes is pretty handsome. Sofia is asking for her attention, talking at great lengths to her about something and she’s pulled into some conversation about football players she can’t really be bothered with so she takes to trying to down her beer the best she can without gagging on the taste of it.

 

Somewhere around the time that somebody is talking about some pregaming they’d done tonight Christen sees someone flip light brown hair over their shoulder in the crowd around the ping pong table. With the face being revealed, she spots Tobin in a plain black t-shirt watching two short girls sink shot after shot and celebrating like basketball players.

 

Deciding to be brave under the guise of being a good friendly classmate she excuses herself from the conversation to head in Tobin’s direction. Tobin’s watching in a group that includes Alex who’s draped over some guy that Christen’s never seen in her life. Tobin also seems disinterested in the conversation the large group is having and more interested in the bottom of her Solo cup of beer. To get her attention, she slides her hand onto the bottom of Tobin’s back.

 

An unfortunate series of events happens just when she’d thought she was really calm, cool, and collected. Somebody bumps into her, causing her to trip, her cup tipping, and her body slamming into Tobin’s side.

 

Tobin’s quick on her feet, sliding her left arm around her in a stabilizing way, and the guy who had bumped into her grasps her arm to keep her from falling. By doing this though he incidentally dumps the remaining quarter of her beer onto the ground, luckily far away from anybody or expensive shoes.

 

“Shit,” Christen mutters while trying to steady her balance, almost immediately the guy who’d bumped into her was apologizing fervently but had slowed his speech somewhere half way to allow his eyes to graze up and down her body. She felt a shiver, and she wasn’t sure if it was because of the discomfort she felt from his gaze or the way that Tobin’s hand remained around her waist and pulled her a little tighter.

 

She hasn’t said anything to Christen yet but has kept a firm hand around her, the guy offers to get her another drink but Christen declines in hopes of getting him away and it seems to work when he leaves with a shrug and a final apology.

 

Tobin is laughing into her ear when he leaves, and she can feel her nose brushing against her own hair as she leans to speak into her ear, “Ya okay?”

 

“I’m fine, thanks,” She responds, her face closer to Tobin’s than she thinks it’s ever been. Tobin holds her cup out to her.

 

“Take it,” She mutters, “I’ve already had two, plus we pregamed at the house.”

 

“Thanks,” Christen nods warily, she’s still not really much of a beer person but decides that if Tobin’s content with keeping her hand where it’s resting on her hip that she’s going to need the distraction.

 

She’s not exactly sure but she thinks when she glances up that Alex sends a wink in her direction but she’s not sure if it’s because Tobin’s got her arm wrapped around Christen and is speaking with their faces awfully close together or if it’s because Alex is all wrapped up with a guy who keeps giving her soft kisses on her chin and cheek every so often. They remain standing close together for a few minutes but when Tobin’s hand suddenly leaves her back it actually feels like it’s been seconds, “Wanna go get some fresh air?”

 

Christen’s barely been there for a half hour tops but Tobin’s proposition is one she can’t turn down so instead of straining her voice to agree she just nods her head. At the sight of her head nod, Tobin grabs hold of her pointer and middle finger with her own, half taking her hand to lead her outside. She watches as Tobin steps out onto the front porch and down the steps, sitting down and leaning back on her palms on the grass. Christen follows, feeling the grass tickle the top of her thighs from her short romper, Tobin’s a little better off with her jeans on so she sits a bit closer to Tobin in hopes of getting some of her second hand body heat (at least, that’s what she says to herself).

 

“It’s not really my scene,” Tobin’s head nods back to the door before she looks at Christen, “Al and Kelley like to come to these parties though and I always end up getting roped into coming out.”

 

“Why?” Christen mostly asks because Tobin doesn’t really seem like the type of person to do something she doesn’t want to.

 

“I don’t know, I like pregaming with them and stuff,” She shrugs before she starts to pick at grass, “I guess it was more fun before they got all tied up with Em and Serv. Which is fine, I don’t mind.”

 

Christen bites her lip nervously, her mind once again teetering on the fence between being bold or not, “What, nobody catches your eye?”

 

Tobin’s mostly silent and before she responds she turns her head to look Christen in the eyes, “Usually, no.”

 

Christen ponders over Tobin’s words in her brain. Usually. _Usually._ She’s not sure what to say.

 

“What about you?” When Christen hears the words her heart stops a little and she’s not sure what to respond but Tobin clarifies her question slightly, “You into parties Ms. Sorority?”

 

She laughs in response to Tobin’s question, shaking her head, “I don’t _mind_ parties, I’m not huge into it but, well I more joined a sorority because my mom and sister were in them and I saw how much they love it and I wanted that too.”

 

“That’s nice,” Tobin smiles at her, nudging her in the shoulder with her own, “So did you join the same one as them or did you choose your own path?”

 

“Same as my mom,” She confirms, “My sister’s actually in the same sorority as Julie, they don’t have my mom’s chapter at Harvard.”

 

A silence falls over them but it’s comfortable so Christen takes another swig of her beer, bringing it down to half empty. She can’t feel it affecting her much, just in the warmth of her cheeks.

 

“So, why math?” Tobin asks her out of the blue and Christen can’t believe that _Tobin_ of all people just asked her about school at a party.

 

“Why communications?” She says with a bit of an edge to her voice.

 

“It’s easy for me to keep up with when we’re traveling so I can keep a high enough GPA to keep playing her,” Tobin states as if it’s obvious, which to be fair it kind of is, “I’m playing soccer when I graduate, that’s my future. What’s yours? What do you want to do?”

 

Christen is aware that their bodies keep moving closer together in the chilly night air, their legs are touching and Tobin’s pinkie finger is touching hers as well, “Well I like math, it just always clicked with me, ever since I was young. I could add before I knew how to read or write and I learned division before cursive. I’m not great at memorizing dates and facts and stuff or interpreting themes of books, just like other people aren’t good at calculus. It’s just my thing, there’s no way I could force myself to be interested in psychology or communications or anything like that, no offense. As for my future, I guess I’m not really sure. I like programming and could probably make a really good living off that, I also really like stats and applied math so I might try to take some actuarial exams after I take linear algebra or differential equations, we’ll see.”

 

“None taken,” Tobin mutters, “I can barely muster enough energy to interest myself in communications. Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out though. It’s pretty cool.”

 

Christen shakes her head incredulously, “Not as figured out as you Ms. Olympian.”

 

Before she knows it her arm is a little sore and painful, she brings her hand up to rub at it as she shouts, “Ow! What was that for?”

 

“Don’t jinx it,” Tobin laughs at her and Christen rolls her eyes.

 

“Okay, I take it back,” She feels a little warm and fuzzy at the way Tobin blushes when she compliments her, “Ms. Olympic hopeful.”

 

“Better,” Tobin’s still laughing at her reaction.

 

The topic acts as a segue to their childhoods and pretty soon Christen finds herself almost rolling on the floor with laughter listening to stories of Tobin’s childhood. She tells her embarrassing stories about her siblings but also about herself, like how she’d nailed her three year old brother in the head with a soccer ball when she was six and blamed it on her older sisters, or how she’d peed her pants at Disney Land (also when she was six) because she’d had a fear of mascots (a fear she luckily had gotten over) and one of the characters had tried to high five her in passing, or when she was fifteen and she’d gone on a church retreat and they had broken into groups to perform skits where she’d accidentally messed up her line ‘can I trust you? Don’t touch it’ but actually said, ‘can I touch you’ in front of a couple hundred teenagers.

 

Christen retaliated with her own, mostly involving her dad trying to pull pranks on them or mess with them. There’s a lot of times she can recount her dad volunteering at her school and mercilessly teasing her and her sisters, always threatening the little boys (little did her dad know) to stay away from his precious daughters or how he’d always been insistent on going over the top with family themed Halloween costumes and Channing had convinced them all to be wild cats one year and he’d showed up in a skin tight leopard costume that nobody deserved to see, and most embarrassingly to her how he’d spent the majority of their lives convincing them to call him ‘Big Daddy’.

 

So Christen feels like her and Tobin have been outside for a couple minutes, maybe a half hour tops, but when she hears her phone buzzing repeatedly in her clutch and she takes it out to answer Julie’s call she notes that it’s actually after 12:30. She supposes she has noticed how people are getting sloppier and sloppier as they exit the house, each person a bit more inebriated than the last.

 

Julie sounds concerned when she lifts the phone to her ear, “Chris? Where are you? We’ve been looking for you for a half hour, Moe says she hasn’t seen you for a couple hours?”

 

Christen immediately feels bad at the tone of Julie’s panicked voice, “I’m outside in the yard Jules, I came out for some fresh air. Sorry I didn’t tell any of you.”

 

“It’s okay,” Julie breaths a sigh of relief into the phone before her muffled voice leans over to repeat what she just said to somebody on the other side of the phone, “Stay where you are, we’re going to come out, Zach said he heard the neighbors are getting mad so we were gonna grab you and Moe to leave.”

 

“Okay,” Christen breathes slowly through the phone, as much as she wants to stick here with Tobin she’d rather leave than risk getting caught by the police with a couple cups of beer in her system if the neighbors were threatening, “Julie, her friend, and Moe are all leaving and I told them I’d go with them. They said the neighbors are getting mad.”

 

“Oh, okay,” Tobin says this with a little disappointment in her tone as she moves to push herself up from her hands, she sticks a hand out to help Christen up as well. When she’s standing Tobin pulls her into a tight hug, looping her arms up and around her neck, “I had a lot of fun with you tonight Chris.”

“Me too,” She whispers back into her ear, her arms are wrapped around Tobin’s waist and she’s not sure how long the hug is going to last but she’s certainly not going to be the first one to pull away. Tobin pulls back slightly at first, looking her in the eyes but still keeping her arms wrapped loosely around her neck.

 

“Chris!” With Julie’s shout she’s pulled out of her reverie, finally letting go of Tobin reluctantly but before she has the opportunity to say that she should get going Tobin grabs her hand quickly, “Text me when you get home?”

 

It comes out as more of a question than a statement, leading Christen to think that maybe she wants to talk more rather than is just concerned for her safety, “Okay, and you too.”

 

“I should go check on Alex and Kelley too, they might be a little worse for wear at this point,” Tobin nods back towards the house, “But I’ll see you Tuesday, yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” Julie’s almost reached her at this point, “See you Tuesday Tobin.”

 

As Tobin retreats back towards the house she glances back one more time with a wave and it takes Christen a tug from Julie to turn back around and gain the strength to walk in the opposite direction.

 

Moe and Julie’s companion are chatting at the end of the lawn a few feet away from them, waiting patiently for the walk back so Julie squeezes her arm gently with a knowing look in her eyes, “You have so much explaining to do when we get home.”

 

Christen giggles because Julie sounds more like a concerned mom than a tipsy college student as they’re leaving the house but nonetheless agrees with her, “I know, trust me, I know.”

 

-

 

“So when are you going to ask her out?”

 

Christen’s eyes almost bulge out of their sockets at Julie’s question. She’d escaped post party drilling by claiming that she needed some time to think about what happened first and in turn had listened to Julie’s recount of what happened with Zach before bed. The next morning, however, they’d barely sat down when Julie demanded more details of the events she’d caught the tail end of just a few hours before, “What do you mean?”

 

“When are you going to ask her out?” Julie repeats firmly with steady eye contact.

 

Slouching back in her chair she crosses her arms over her chest, resting her fork back on the plate holding her omelet.

 

Julie groans at her out of frustration, “C’mon Chris, she likes you.”

 

“But-”

 

“No buts Christen,” She’s shaking her head at her now, “She likes you. She invites you over, cooks for you, lets you sleep over if you want, that conversation, the compliments.”

 

“All of which are things that friends could do for each other,” Christen watches as Julie shakes her head yet again.

 

“She talks to her roommates about you and she thinks you’re cute Christen,” She blushes as Julie repeats the words almost verbatim that her sister had said, “ _And_ she looked like someone had drop kicked a puppy right in front of her when we left last night.”

 

Yet again Christen doesn’t have much to retaliate with at the statement so she lets out a sigh, “And what if we’re wrong and she doesn’t like me?”

 

“Then you stay friends,” Julie states as if it’s that simple, and quite frankly it is, “And if she thinks anything less of you because of it she doesn’t deserve to be your friend, and you’ll never have to see her after the semester.”

 

“You really think I should do it?”

 

“I think you’ll regret it if you don’t Chris,” Julie explains to her, “The semester is more than halfway over, initiation is next week, then date night and formal are right around the corner, Thanksgiving is right after that then it’s dead week and finals and boom the semester’s over. You’re not going to have an excuse to see her every couple of days next semester so really you should just go for it.”

 

“You’d do it if you were in my shoes?” She just wants to clarify, one more time, that Julie has confidence in her and the situation.  
  
“Honestly if I were in your shoes,” Julie stabs at a piece of ham with her fork, “I’d ask her to date night. Your is in two weeks right? Definitely enough time.”

 

“I don’t know Jules,” She hesitates yet again and is grateful that Julie is being patient with her, “I don’t think Tobin would really be into the whole sorority date night thing.”

 

“If she’s into you, she’ll be flattered that you asked her and excited to do anything with you,” She reasons, “Plus it’s like a cop out date, not even a real date. If she says yes then she’s probably interested and you can figure it out after. It’s all planned already, you literally just have to show up.”

 

“True,” Christen almost can’t believe she’s agreeing to this, “So Tuesday, you think I should just bring it up at lunch or something?”

 

“Yeah, test the waters a bit you know?” Julie’s beaming at her now, grin wide and happy, “Literally just mention it’s coming up and ask her.”

 

“Okay?”

 

“Okay.”

 

-

 

Christen would be lying if she said that she didn’t spend the next forty-eight or so hours trying to figure out exactly how to phrase her question, and honestly she doesn’t magically think up the best way to ask. Tobin seems calm like always when she finds the seat next to her, sliding down into her spot and greeting Christen with a warm smile.

 

Class seems to drag on, feeling like it’ll never end but when it does Christen finds herself wishing there was some more time left. As expected, Tobin asks her if she wants to join her for lunch, and she agrees. She’d done some basic research just to make sure that Tobin didn’t have a game the same day and luckily (or maybe not luckily if things go bad) they had a home game the night before. Kelley also was planning on going, she’d seen her name lined up by Emily’s for the date sign up list on the chapter’s date night google do so she was pretty confident that Tobin should be free from soccer that night.

 

Tobin gets her usual salad and apple, sneaks her way in front of Christen in line, and pays for her meal yet again. Before she knows it she’s sitting across a table from Tobin.

 

There’s a weird tone in the air she can’t help but think but then reminds herself that it’s just her being weird, not Tobin. Tobin’s doing her best to keep up a mostly one sided conversation with herself but seems a little confused after the fluidly flowing conversation they’d had on the lawn outside just a few days earlier. When Christen’s starting to think she can’t do it, won’t do it, a lull in the conversation leaves them in a soft silence and Christen is forced to decide that really, it’s now or never. She hasn’t been twisted up in her head for the past few days for nothing.

 

“Can I ask you something?” She watches as Tobin nods her head while trying to eat her salad as gracefully as possible, “What are you doing in two Saturdays?”

 

Two Saturdays? That’s the best you could do? Had she panicked over saying the actual date for some reason in case she said the wrong one on accident or just flat out asking but that’s the best she could come up with?

 

“Actually, I just found out yesterday that I’m going to be at camp with the national team that week, there’s a game on Sunday,” Tobin drops her fork down on her plate for a moment, apparently deciding it’s now the appropriate time to eat her apple, “Why?”

 

Christen panics again, she’s not completely sure how she didn’t think of that possibility, “Oh! Uh, does that mean you’ll be gone for our presentation day?”

 

“No,” She almost nods like she’s satisfied, “I’ll come back Monday morning, but we probably should get together sometime next week, you know not put if off for the last second?”

 

“Yeah, definitely,” Christen exhales a little to strongly for her liking.

 

“You okay? No offense but you seem a little out of it today,” Tobin’s looking at her like she’s genuinely concerned.

 

“Yeah, I just have a programming exam this week, I’m a little anxious for it,” She explains hoping that Tobin takes the bait.

 

“Oh,” Tobin looks a little like she doesn’t believe her, probably because she didn’t look this stressed last week when she’d had twice the amount of exams but watches her shrug, “I hope it goes well then.”

 

“Thanks,” She smiles back before trying to snap back to her normal self, “And congratulations by the way, on the call up. Must mean a lot to you.”

 

“It does,” Tobin beams at her like she just won the lottery, “Thanks.”

 

-

 

Julie is floored when she gets home and Christen tells her that Tobin can’t come to date night. She also has a million and one follow up questions.

 

“But how did she react? Did she seem flattered? Surprised? Excited? Disappointed?”

 

“Well, I didn’t exactly,” Christen wonders how she should phrase it but she’s cut off as she stutters over her words.

 

“You didn’t what? What did she say? What did you say when she told you she couldn’t come? This is important.”

 

She takes in a deep breath and lets out a sigh, “Well I asked her what she was doing that day, then she told me that she was going to national team camp.”

 

“So you didn’t ask her?” Christen’s not sure if it comes out of Julie’s mouth as an exclamation or a question, “ _Christen_. You were supposed to ask her.”

 

“I know, I know, I just panicked and slipped up Jules, it was so embarrassing. I managed to recover and play it off but,” She groans, “I don’t know. I clammed up, didn’t tell her I had wanted her to come.”

 

“Okay so what’s plan B then?” Christen almost admires Julie’s determination with this, almost.

 

Christen sighs with a shrug, unsure of where to go next.

 

-

 

Christen finds herself a little more relaxed when Tobin invites her over to work on their project on Thursday. She doesn’t have her programming exam to worry about, nor any other exams for a few more weeks so she feels a bit more free than she has in weeks.

 

Tobin still ties her stomach in knots, she shows up again to her house and this time there’s chicken stir fry for two prepared. Their project content is a little more obscure this time and is taking them longer to run through, especially considering that Christen’s been so overloaded with exams that she hasn’t had time to prepare to the extent she would have liked. A headache is overriding her brain, probably from staring at her computer so much in the past few days.

 

Suddenly the front door opens and shuts loudly and Christen welcomes the distraction, Kelley and Emily come strutting hand in hand through to the kitchen. Kelley almost immediately calls dibs on the leftover stir fry sitting on the counter after Tobin states it’s only been cold for a half an hour, which Christen thinks is an improvement from the time she’d eaten the two hour old tacos.

 

Kelley and Emily seem to be in some sort of intense debate about outfits for date night and Christen feels a little anxious listening to them discuss it.

 

Christen begins to think that Emily must really be a good fit for Kelley while listening to the debate, she seems to have the same, let’s phrase it eclectic to be nice, taste in fun accessories as Kelley. Apparently the topic up for debate is what sort of appalling oversized shirt they should wear. Kelley is in favor of either Hawaiian shirts or neon 90’s windbreakers. Emily argues that Hawaiian is too mainstream frat boy (to which Kelley protests that she is in fact everyone’s favorite _frat daddy Kevin_ ) and 90’s windbreakers might be too hard to find at thrift stores in just two weeks. Rather, she thinks they should go with matching American flag fanny packs, snapbacks, and Kelley should wear a black shirt with stars and she’ll wear a red and white stripe shirt she has from a Where’s Waldo costume.

 

After about ten minutes listening to them argue at a million miles per hour Kelley turns her head in their direction to which Christen and Tobin hold up their hands in innocence.

 

“I am not getting into this,” Tobin shakes her head and Christen agrees with her, “No way.”

 

This seems to get them out of the room and away from them but as they’re leaving Emily states adamantly, “We’re wearing our Birks and I don’t care what you say. I’m not negotiating on that.”

 

“Of course we’re wearing our Birks,” Kelley squeaks back, “You’re missing the point _completely.”_

 

Christen’s mood lightens when they depart and she drops her pen and looks at Tobin across the table, “Do we have to finish this now?”

 

Tobin’s almost giddy as she drops her pen too, “I thought you’d never ask. I’m so _bored_ with this class. Can’t wait for it to be over.”

 

“Yeah,” Christen hesitates slightly, she hopes it’s so slightly that Tobin doesn’t notice, “Can’t wait.”

 

-

 

It’s half past eleven, Kelley’s tired and just finishing getting ready for bed when there’s a persistent knocking on her door.

 

When she opens the door she’s surprised to see Tobin. Actually she’s not surprised to see Tobin, there’s really only two people she would hope would be knocking at her door at eleven at night and Tobin’s one half of those two people. Rather, it’s the slightly frantic look on her face that startles her more.

 

“What’s up Tobito?” She over exaggeratedly opens the door, bowing as she walks in like she’s royalty.

 

Tobin collapses backwards onto her bed, looking up at the ceiling. Moments later Alex walks in the door, claiming she’d been summoned to Kelley’s room for a ‘chat’.

 

“What’s up with her?” Kelley tries to clarify but Alex shrugs her shoulders in innocence.

 

“How well do you know Christen Kel?” Kelley sighs, thinking here we go _again_ but also just wishing that Tobin would have grown a pair by now and made a move on the poor girl so she can stop moping about how she thinks she’s fallen for a straight girl.

 

“We’ve been over this before. I don’t know squat other than she’s about to become my grandlittle,” Tobin glances up at her at first with a happy look before it changes right back to a look of frustration.

 

“Congrats,” Tobin mumbles almost incoherently to her, “I bet Sof’s excited, she’s been pushing for that for a while now.”

 

“When it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be I guess,” Kelley’s grinning because she would be lying if she said she wasn’t absolutely stoked, or over the moon as they might say, when Sofia had told her that she’d gotten Christen for a little and immediately had began planning the _coolest_ shirts for big/little reveal, “She’s so cool I can’t believe she wants to be stuck with us. It’s gonna be great. But anyways, back to you ya love sick little shit. What kinda quasi moves did she pull on you tonight that you’re not sure was flirting or not?”

 

“You know how you and Emily were arguing about outfits for date night earlier?”

 

Kelley nods in confusion before realizing that Tobin definitely can’t see her with her gaze so intently focused on their horrid popcorn ceiling, “Yeah, what about it? Does Christen agree with me? Do you agree with me? We should definitely do Hawaiian, I knew it. Emily’s going to be so pissed when I tell her but I’m not letting her walk all over me with this decision this time.”

 

“When did you say that date night was again?”

 

“Huh?” Kelley is completely confused with where Tobin’s trying to lead her with this, “It’s the 27th.”

 

“So not next Saturday,” Kelley can tell that Tobin is trying to regulate her breathing a little, “But the Saturday after? As in the Saturday I’m in camp.”

 

“Yeah,” She confirms.

 

“Do you think that there was any chance,” Tobin pauses, not wanting to jump to conclusions, but letting the dots connect in her head, “That she was going to ask me to your guys’ date night?”

 

“Tobin,” Alex scolds her from the other side of the room, to be honest Kelley had almost forgot she was over there, “You really have got to stop letting this happen.”

 

Alex is referring to the few times where Tobin had incidentally been asked to ‘hang out’ (read go on a date) with boys before, only to turn up expecting to be with a group of people but it being a much more intimate setting for two people. Then Tobin always would make up some lame excuse, feel bad for leading guys on unknowingly, and eventually spill the truth to get them to back off.

 

“She didn’t ask me Al, okay?” Tobin says quite defensively and it surprises Kelley, the only time she’s really seen Tobin seriously use a harsh tone with anyone was on the field, “On Tuesday, when we were eating lunch together-”

 

“This Tuesday,” Kelley interrupts, “Like after the party where you guys abandoned us to flirt on the front lawn.”

 

“Yes, Kel, this past Tuesday, as in two days ago Tuesday,” Kelley laughs at Tobin’s double clarification, “She asked me what I was doing in two Saturdays, then I told her I was going to camp and she seemed a little disappointed but was pretending to be happy.”

 

“Well,” Kelley states as if it’s obvious, because it is, “She was definitely going to ask you to date night.”

 

“Are you sure?” Tobin questions her warily, “Because if I do something stupid and embarrass myself because I made a bad assumption then-”

 

“Tobin you have to tell her,” Alex inputs from the other side of the room, “As much as I like to make fun of you for being wrapped around her finger it’ll be much more fun when I can make fun of both of you for being chickens for so long.”

 

“Agreed,” Kelley states affirmatively, “You should tell her, like yesterday.”

 

“Okay so,” Tobin pushes herself up from the bed onto her elbows with a smirk, “Are you guys going to help me make a plan or?”

 

-

 

Christen’s been back in her room for about two hours and she’s laying in bed flicking through her instagram feed one last time before falling asleep when a text message pops across the top of her screen from Tobin. Flicking it open, she assumes it’s just going to be something about preparing for their project or something when her breath catches in her throat.

 

_Tobin: Spontaneous road trip Saturday. You in or naw?_

 

Before she can get too excited, she repeats in her head please don’t be busy, please don’t be busy, as she reaches for her planner. Luckily, the philanthropy she had to attend was on Sunday as she’d briefly hoped, leaving her wide open for Saturday. She had told Julie that she’d go to a movie with her but she’s sure that Jules will understand when she explains and can replace herself with Zach at the last minute.

 

Whispering across the room to see if she’s still awake, Christen repeats Tobin’s message to her, just double checking that yes is the right answer.

 

“Obviously Christen,” Julie laughs but also whispers it kind of harshly, “Say yes. Now.”

 

“Okay,” Before she lets any lingering thoughts or concerns or questions of where and why wash over her she presses the send button on a simple _I’m in_. Within a matter of seconds her phone buzzes back with Tobin’s response.

 

_Tobin: Perfect. Where something comfortable to walk in, and warm. I’ll bring the coffee and donuts. See you at 8:30 am._

 

_-_

 

Christen’s ready by eight, realistically seven thirty if she doesn’t count the time she spends trying on three almost identical pair of leggings in black, dark gray, and light gray before deciding to play it safe with the simple black pair. She’s got a crew neck sweatshirt on and also has a gray zip up fleece in case her brittle California skin can’t handle the chilly North Carolina autumn.

 

Julie bids her luck after Tobin texts her at 8:34 and she leaves the room. Tobin’s been pretty mum about the whole thing so she’s got her backpack with their book for class in it in case she’s got time to work on it in the car, a reusable bottle of water, and a couple of granola bars in case if Tobin wants one as well.

 

The one thing she’s really not sure about is _who_ exactly is invited on this road trip and _why_ she was invited. Holding her breath almost all the way down the elevator, through the hall, and out the door she’s a bit surprised when she realizes it’s just Tobin in the car.

 

No Alex, no Kelley, no other team mates, and no other athletes she’s seen her eat lunch with before. Just Tobin.

 

“Hey,” Tobin states excitedly as she hands her a coffee, “Good morning!”

 

“Morning,” Christen agrees, happily accepting her morning cup of Joe after clicking her seat belt into place, “So, is it uh, just the two of us? Or are we picking up other people?”

 

“Nope,” Tobin winks at her from her spot before turning her gaze in front of her and throwing the car in park, “Just you and me.”

 

Christen nods at her with a smile, making eye contact one last time with her before she turns her focus completely on the road.

 

-

 

Three and a half hours later and Tobin is pulling up into a nearly empty parking lot, save for two or three cars, and Christen is finishing her incessant questioning of where are we going? What are we doing? Are we going to _Tennessee?_ Tobin, please, tell me.

 

There’s a clear trail that Tobin’s headed towards, but it’s unmarked. Tobin smiles back at her over her shoulder, motioning for her to follow. Really, it’s a simple hike that Tobin takes her on, if she’s guessing it’s about a half a mile and the fresh air she’s breathing in surrounded by trees and rocks is almost addicting. It’s silent, really silent, except for the chirp of a few birds every so often.

 

Quickly, Christen can see their destination. Tobin stops in front of her as her suspicions are confirmed and they approach a waterfall, which would explain the running water she thought she’d heard.

 

“This is so pretty Tobin,” They didn't talk for the whole walk but Christen’s voice doesn’t seem to startle her.

 

“It’s not the best waterfall in the world or anything,” She shrugs, “But it’s nice in the summer, you can swim here.”

 

A silence falls over them again, Tobin leading them up some rocks on the side of the waterfall. She finds one large enough to fit the two of them sitting side by side, but just barely comfortable. After she sits down she holds up a hand to Christen unnecessarily, but Christen welcomes the assistance and the warmth of her hand on the chilly afternoon. When she sits down however, Tobin doesn’t drop her hands, instead squeezing it in reassurance.  
  
There’s a silence still, nothing but the sound of water trickling over rocks filling their ears. Christen’s not sure how long it’s been, them sitting in silence with Tobin’s thumb rubbing circles over the knuckle at the base of her own thumb, them _holding hands._

 

Tobin clears her throat, lets out a little cough before she turns her head to look at Christen and bluntly asking, “Were you going to ask me to date night next Saturday?”

 

Choking. That’s all Christen can feel, herself choking on the air.

 

Tobin’s hand grips hers tighter and she smiles at her encouragingly, “Honestly Chris, were you?”

 

Christen turns her head to face straight forward, it doesn’t need to be straight forward, just somewhere away from Tobin’s prying and questioning eyes. A blush is creeping up her face, so strong that she thinks it’s spreading from her cheeks to her neck and down the rest of her body, from her fingers to her toes and she’s absolutely certain that Tobin can feel it where she’s got their hands clasped.

 

Now or never Christen, now or never.

 

“Honestly,” Her head remains straight forward, unmoving and frozen in place, “Honestly, yeah I was.”

 

“Chris,” Tobin’s voice is softer than she’s ever heard it before, softer than when they were sitting on the lawn together and surprisingly softer than the night she’d slept in Tobin’s bed, when she’d place her hand on the center of her back to ask her if she was cold, “Chris, look at me.”

 

She’s not sure if she can, she’s not sure if she’s more embarrassed or relieved that finally, finally she at least _knows_ or at the bare minimum is catching on.

 

Somehow she does. Slowly but surely her head is turning, turning to meet Tobin’s sweat brown eyes.

 

For as uncertain as she was about turning her head, it’s probably the best decision of her life.

 

Because suddenly, more suddenly than she ever could have expected, Tobin’s soft, sweet, pink lips are pressing up against her own. Suddenly she can feel eyelashes brushing against her cheek, a nose knocking into hers, and she can taste the bitter aftertaste of stale coffee.

 

It’s so sudden that she forgets to close her own eyes, and later she realizes that if somebody were to have taken a picture of her it probably would have looked like she was a deer caught in headlights.

 

It’s so sudden that by the time she realizes what’s happening, snaps her brain into focus, orders her lips to pucker, and pushes back with a light amount of pressure, that it’s over.

 

Tobin seems content though, a smile gracing her face like always (when is the girl not happy, honestly?) and letting out the sweetest giggle she’s ever heard, “Chris? You okay?”

 

“Yeah, I,” Undoubtedly Tobin can feel her clammy hand as she tries to wipe the other against her leggings and focuses on the way that Tobin is looking at her, silently begging for eye contact, “I’m okay.”

 

“Good,” Tobin raises the interlaced hands, pressing a soft kiss to the back of her hand, “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while now.”

 

“Really?” Something in Christen clicks, and she thinks of how dumb it was that she was even concerned about this at all.

 

“Yeah,” She confirms, “I just wasn’t sure if you were interested.”

 

“Me neither,” Christen clamps her hand over her mouth after she says it out loud, freezing in the moment, and mentally cursing her mind for not thinking, “I mean, not that I wasn’t sure if I was interested, I wasn’t sure if you were interested or just bein-”

 

“Shhh,” Normally Christen thinks she would be annoyed at someone sushing her but is grateful that Tobin stops her rambling mouth before she says something else that’s dumb, “I’m sorry, I was just trying to be careful, mind the boundaries.”

 

A silence wafts over them once again, Christen’s not sure if she should speak up first or just let it hang over them.

 

“I would have loved to, by the way,” Tobin’s pretty quick at registering her confusion before she clarifies her statement, “Go to date night with you, I would go in a heartbeat if I was going to be here.”

 

“I know,” Bravely, she drops her head onto Tobin’s shoulder in comfort, this time squeezing her hand back in thanks, “But I understand.”

 

“So I was thinking I could make it up to you,” Tobin’s head drops lightly against hers and it makes her smile dumbly at a rock, “I leave on Tuesday but what about a date on Monday?”

 

Christen begins to lift her head up from Tobin’s shoulder and it’s a little awkward when Tobin gets the hint, but she wants to look her in the eyes, “I think this more than makes up for it Tobin.”

 

Tobin shrugs back at her with a smirk, “Just say yes, please.”

 

“I’d love to go on a date with you,” Christen thinks this time, that definitely, Tobin’s eyes are twinkling, “You know, you didn’t have to drive almost all the way to Tennessee just to ask me out on a date.”

 

“Yes I did,” Tobin’s smiling at her in the way she does when she’s about to make a horrible joke, “I had to so that I could make a terrible ‘you’re the only ten I see” joke.”

 

Christen judges her in the side with her elbow even though their hands are still interlaced, “Seriously Tobin, what is this place?”

 

“You really wanna know?”

 

“Yeah,” Christen nods in confirmation.

 

“It’s called skinny dip falls,” As Tobin’s smirk rises, her own smile falls into a disapproving look.

 

“Tobin!” She can’t help but giggle, “Are you serious?”

 

“I swear, google it,” Tobin confirms, “I came up here my sophomore year with Kelley and Al every few weeks when we moved into our house in the summer, it’s one of my favorite places to go, I’m not really sure why but it is.”

 

She can’t help herself as she leans up to press a kiss to Tobin’s cheek, “Well, thanks for bringing me here Tobin Heath. I love it.”

 

-

 

Christen can’t help but feel a little empty after Tobin drops her off at her dorm but she’s also glad to get away to think and process what just happened, hoping to catch Julie before she’d left for her own date with Zach. To her disappointment, she’s gone by the time she walks in. Shooting a text to Tyler in hopes that she’s free, she also gets a note of rejection. In retaliation she sends her a little tease of what happened, informing her that she’d kissed Tobin and got back a significant number of exclamation points and kissy face emojis. Luckily, it was still early afternoon back home and she was able to get ahold of Channing, who’d been with her mom at the time. Really, she’d just wanted to spill the details to her sisters but she also knew her mom had been told all the details already and would be informed of any future developments so she might as well just bite the bullet and kill two birds with one stone.

 

After she hangs up the facetime with her mom and sister she’s alerted to two texts that had been left unnoticed in wind of her call. Her stomach ties itself back up in a knot at Tobin’s text messages.

 

_Tobin: What are you doing?_

_Tobin: I’m bored Chris._

 

She sends a response back to her, saying she’s just about to pull open a tab for Netflix and invites her over, bragging about the ice cream options in the top of her mini fridge.

 

Before she knows it Tobin confirms that she’s on her way. Upon her arrival, Christen slides a pair of slippers on her feet so that she’s not barefoot in the entryway and opens the door for her.

 

You’d think that it had been longer than an hour and twenty minutes since they’d last seen each other. Christen moves for a hug but instead of feeling Tobin’s arms wrap around her neck a palm lands on her cheek, tilting her face over for a kiss instead.

 

It’s soft and quick, just like the one they’d shared first on the rock and later when Tobin pulled up in front of her dorm to drop her off. Pulling away, Tobin whispers a soft “hi” a couple millimeters from her face before pressing one more quick peck to her lips and separating their bodies.

 

“Do you wanna come up or do you wanna stand here staring at me in the hallway?” Christen pinches the skin just below her elbow gently and teasingly.

 

“Lead the way Press,” Tobin motions with her hand toward the elevator, as they’re waiting Christen notices the way that Tobin’s eyes scan from her hair, over her face, and down the rest of her body. She’d changed, but into an outfit very similar to the one she’d been wearing earlier, black leggings but this time with a Carolina sweatshirt.

 

“Did you put on more makeup?” Tobin’s voice is teasing she knows, but she can’t help but blush at being caught by Tobin and nodding sheepishly.

 

“Good thing, I’ll be able to see it really well when we’re making out with my eyes closed for the next hour and a half.” This time Tobin earns herself a strong and firm elbow to the side that has her groaning, “Chris you can’t do that, I have a game tomorrow afternoon.”

 

“Stop teasing me and maybe I’ll consider it,” Christen states confidently as the doors slide open to her floor and she guides the way down the hall to her room, opening the door to her own room she states as she points to her bed, “Make yourself at home.”

 

Tobin makes a face as she sits down on her bed and Christen understands, for as much as she’d tried to pad her bed with a foam pad and a feather bed you could still feel the rubber mattress underneath. Despite this she shrugs and pulls the already unmade sheets back just enough so that she can slide under them and wedge herself as close to the wall as possible.

 

“Mint chocolate chip or cookie dough?” Christen holds up two separate flavors of ice cream for Tobin’s choosing.

 

“Um, actually,” Tobin shifts a little on the bed, “I don’t really like ice cream.”

 

“You’re shitting me,” Christen’s mouth drops and Tobin laughs at her response as she moves to replace the ice cream back into the refrigerator

 

Tobin doesn’t respond but sits there looking a little sheepish as Christen slides into her bed with her laptop in tow, this time setting her laptop on Tobin’s lap she commands, “You pick this time. You’re the guest.”

 

Tobin cringes a little at the use of her own words but reluctantly starts to click through the millions of options but settles on _My Big Fat Greek Wedding_ which Christen finds out quickly makes Tobin laugh a lot more than she’d anticipated.

  
About thirty minutes into the movie Christen begins to wonder if Tobin was serious about what she’d said in the elevator because her head is resting on Christen’s shoulder and her pillows as she lays on her side on the bed, an arm draped over Christen’s stomach and is drawing circles over her sweatshirt. Not once does Tobin make a move that would lead to their lips being anywhere close to each others.

 

Then it occurs to her that maybe Tobin is waiting for her to set the pace this time, initiate whatever contact she wants herself. Her head is fuzzy and her body is warm as she feels soft puffs of air blow softly against her cheek every time Tobin exhales. She slouches down a little so that she’s at the same level as Tobin before turning her head to press her lips to Tobin’s cheek.

 

That’s just the beginning of the tipping point though, the kiss on her cheek leads to a kiss on her nose and eventually to a kiss on her lips, which Tobin eagerly greets with a pucker. This time though, it’s different than the three kisses they’d shared earlier in the day, all short but sweet, soft closed mouth presses of lips on lips.

 

This time though, Christen thinks, it’s not enough with the way that Tobin’s body is leaning on her. Separating for the first time, Christen opens her eyes to see Tobin’s boring into hers, waiting patiently for the next move. Shifting slightly she turns more so that she’s facing Tobin and they’re both lying on their sides, she brings her hand up to rest on the side of Tobin’s face, fingers tangling through a few pieces of loose hair as she uses the leverage to pull herself to meet Tobin’s face. Parting her lips slightly, she waits for Tobin to mimic her action and when she does she can also feel Tobin tugging her waist where her hand had been draped to pull their bodies closer together in the twin size bed.

 

Christen thinks she’s not sure what is happening as her brain clouds over even more with every second that Tobin’s tongue is brushing over her own. It takes a moment she thinks, have some patience she reminds herself, for them to pick up a rhythm that’s comfortable. Tobin’s kisses are slow and languid, just like the pace of her speech when she talks. She’s deep and thorough, separating for air at the last possible second. Christen’s a little more anxious, applies a little more pressure, and searches a little bit faster.

 

When it happens though, it’s comfortable. Like the way that Tobin lets her lean over them, so that she’s half laying on her to make their positioning less awkward, or the way that Tobin nips back at her lower lip when they part and she’s ready for more, or the way that Tobin’s left hand is brushing up and down from the small of her back all the way up to her neck over her sweatshirt. Never does either of their pairs of hands become adventurous enough to slip under clothing, which one side of her brain says is pretty lame but the other side reminds her that it was just this morning that she wasn’t even sure how Tobin felt about her.

 

With the laptop long discarded on the desk beside her bed, movie running mindlessly in the background, Tobin seems exhausted as she leans her head more fully into the pillows from where she’d been eager and trying to strain herself to meet Christen kiss for kiss. Christen takes the opportunity to kiss down her chin, trying to keep the momentum up, and finds herself leaving a pattern of soft kisses with occasional nips from her teeth after she does it the first time and she feels Tobin shift under her in excitement, her breathing gets a little deeper, and the grasp around her body clenches a little tighter.

 

Admittedly she gets a little carried away, and instead of giving Tobin a couple of moments to catch her breath it seems more like she’s becoming more and more out of breath, especially as Christen finds a spot below her ear that she seems to _really_ like and starts her pattern of sucking, kissing, and nipping right there. Deciding that enough's enough, she returns to press a few soft pecks to Tobin’s lips, allowing herself some time to slow herself down, “You okay?”

 

“Never been better,” Tobin’s voice is weak and if Christen hadn’t witnessed what’d just gone down she probably wouldn’t have believed her, she grins widely and leans down to press one final peck to her lips before shifting her body weight so she’s not resting overtop of Tobin at all any more, to which Tobin groans about but also leans up to shift and adjust her shirt that’d gotten a little mangled in the heat of the moment

 

The movie’s over and Christen’s not sure how long it’s been but she shuts her laptop closed, shifting her way off the edge of the bed. Tobin’s resting on her side, watching her move and adjust her own clothes before she sighs and pulls the sheets from her body

 

“Mind if I use your bathroom quickly?” Tobin looks a bit more than dishevelled as she points toward the open bathroom door and Christen giggles at the sight, nodding her head.

 

Christen can hear the water of their sink running through the thin walls of her dorm and she thinks that Tobin must be splashing water on her face, the water stops and it’s a few moments before she hears a groan and Tobin hissing her name “ _Christen!”_

 

Confused, she waits for Tobin to come out a moment later, her hair’s pulled into a ponytail she was wearing on her wrist earlier and she points to a spot behind her ear. A bruise hasn’t formed yet, but there’s certainly a red ring left peculiarly in the shape of a mouth. All she can muster is a small, “Sorry?”

 

“Alex and Kelley are going to kill me!” Tobin shakes her head at her cheekily, not really upset but definitely a bit flustered, “But I really should get home, I’ve got that game tomorrow and I should get some rest.”

 

“Are you sure?” Christen is leaning against a wall now while she watches Tobin tug her previously discarded sweatshirt over her head.

 

“I’m 110% sure that I have a game tomorrow,” Tobin confirms with a grin.

 

“I meant that you have to leave,” She clarifies unnecessarily which makes Tobin’s smile droop a little, “Can I come watch?”

 

“The game, is in fact, open to the public, I can confirm,” Christen briefly wonders what she’s gotten herself into at the sound of Tobin’s sarcastic reply before she clarifies more softly, “I’d love if you came Chris. It’d mean alot to me.”

 

“Okay, so I’ll be there,” She reaches her hand out for Tobin to grasp, pulling her in for one quick peck on the lips, “Let me walk you out.”

 

Tobin doesn’t drop her hand as they stand in silence in the elevator, nor as they walk to the front door. Finally, with one last kiss she bids Tobin farewell for the night, for real this time.

 

-

 

Six days without Tobin goes excruciatingly slowly considering that technically they’d only started seeing each other three days before she left. Most of her time not spent in class is filled with intermittent texts from Tobin, filling her in on how she is and isn’t in shape compared to the rest of the team, or how much their training sessions kick her butt, or about some antics that her and her friends Arod and Cheney are pulling on other older members of the team. Twice Tobin surprises her with phone calls, stating that she’s bored in between trainings and wanted to check in with her day.

 

When she returns Christen greets her with coffee and snacks at her house late afternoon so they can squeeze in the run through of their presentation that her planner was nagging her about. Subtly, in between their talks of classes, the NCAA tournament, Thanksgiving, and everything else that is filling their time, Christen tries to drop hints to Tobin about coming to formal because this time she’d properly done an investigation, checking both her school soccer schedule and the national team schedule to make sure she’d been free.

 

Tobin picked up on her subtle hints, boy did she ever, and refused to talk to her about it until Christen finally just spit it out and asked her to come.

 

Then she didn’t stop talking about it for two weeks. In a completely un Tobin like way, she’d been bragging about how good her dress was, how perfect her hair was going to be, and how her and Christen were going to look a lot hotter than Kelley and Emily. Like it was some sort of competition.

 

Until she figures out that it is a competition, one day when she’s at Tobin’s house and Kelley’s already there when she walks in, Kelley corners her on her way to the kitchen, “Just so you know, just because you’re my grand little, does not mean that Emily and I are going to go easy on you and Tobin, got it?”

 

Christen’s confused because she has no clue what sort of scale they’re going to use for said competition or why it started or what the point even is and quite frankly she thinks it’s dumb but she does enjoy the way Tobin flushes when Kelley mocks her about Christen. It’s held the weekend after the NCAA tournament ends (spoiler alert, they won) and Christen is beginning to see Tobin relaxed in a way she’s never seen before. They finish their last exam before finals for their class two days before and they spend the Friday night prior in the back row of a movie theater where Tobin had seemed to have a bit of a difficult time keeping her hands to herself.

 

She’d spent her last Saturday gossiping and helping Julie prepare for her own formal with Zach, and fortunately for her Julie was returning the favor. Together they’d straightened and recurled her hair, pulling it into a perfectly polished high messy ponytail. She’d finally settled on a long sleeve black romper with a statement necklace a few days before, not giving Tobin any hints no matter how much she’d prods. In response, Tobin didn’t give her any about her own outfit either.

 

So when she arrives at Tobin’s door, letting her hand knock hard enough that hopefully Tobin will hear it from the second floor if she needs to, her mouth absolutely drops unabashedly at the sight.

 

When Tobin had said that she’d had a fair few options from events that her parents had made her attend, she must not have been exaggerating. Tobin’s hair falls in loose curls over her shoulders like she’s never seen it before, her makeup is subtle but since it’s Tobin it’s significantly more than she’s ever seen before, foundation in a thin layer and a little bit of blush grace her face, and her eyes are perfectly lined and have a coat of mascara. A light pink lip gloss acts as the finishing touch.

 

Really though, it’s the dress that stops her in her tracks. It’s maroon with an asymmetrical hemline, a dress that she’d actually eyed for herself at Nordstrom over the summer. It’s fitted well from neck to waist, pretty plane to be honest, but it’s the jut of the hem that emphasizes her toned limbs that makes it a show stopper in her mind.

 

“You look incredible,” She manages to get out while she gets her fourth sweep from head to toe, noting the pair of simple classic black ankle strap heeled sandals.

 

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” Tobin holds out a hand, pulling her in closer to place a ghost of a kiss on her lips since they’ve both got a little bit of lip color on, “Come in.”

 

They’d agreed to meet at Tobin’s at six, unceremoniously Kelley and Emily had declared they were hosting Sofia and her boy toy along with her and Tobin for pizza and pre-gaming, the ‘p’ essentials. Then they’d leave at 7:30 in order to guarantee being able to find a parking spot outside the house, where they were set to leave at 8:30 after optional pictures.

 

When she enters the room she realizes she’s the last to arrive as Emily holds up a glass of rum and coke, “Ow ow! She has arrived ladies and gentleman, let’s get the pizza boy on the line, we’re all lookin hot and we need some sustenance before we get this party on the road!”

 

Christen rolls her eyes at how over the top Emily is and how much Kelley encourages it as she holds up her own glass for a cheers. Tobin keeps pulling her past the living room though, where Alex and Servando have apparently joined the pregame and into the kitchen.

 

“Pick your poison,” She states while pointing to the counter where there’s a few options including vodka, rum, tequila, and unfortunately Fireball along with some soda’s and juices. Tobin stops her from pouring some vodka and cranberry juice into a glass with her own hand, she slides a shot glass down to her while holding onto one of her own, she also has a beer in her other hand.

 

Smirking, Christen accepts, keeping a firm hand on the vodka she’d already had and pouring her shot, she passes it over to Tobin who’s waiting and with a countdown from Tobin’s fingers they toss back the shots together. Christen winces slightly with a cough whereas Tobin just squints her face a little, searching through the drawers again for a bottle opener while Christen pours a little juice into her glass to down before mixing her drink.

 

Christen hadn’t necessarily thought Tobin would be too excited or into the whole formal thing, especially after she’d pulled her out onto the front lawn a few weeks ago at the party they’d been at. However, Tobin surprises her. For most of the ride on the party bus to the venue they’d sat up on the edge of the seats with their feet resting on the worn leather seats while they watched other people show them how it was done on the pole. Christen clutches her hand most of the time and they take turns whisper shouting in each other’s ears until they arrive.

 

When they do, it’s like some sort of weird switch flipped in the two of them. Surprisingly to Christen, Tobin spends almost the entire night on the dance floor with her, finding them with Tobin’s arms wrapped tightly around her neck as they dance, or grinding against each other. Even when people start pulling her away, she for sure remembers getting tugged away by Kelley, Sofia, Moe, and a few other people occasionally, and when she does Tobin always manages to find her Kelley, Emily, or Sofia and just joins in with them.

 

The end of the night finds them back at Tobin’s house, their favorite place to late night crash with Tobin’s large comfortable bed awaiting them. She’d had suspicions that tonight could be _the_ night. Her intuition seems all but confirmed after they reach Tobin’s room, where she moves to gently shove Tobin down onto the bed playfully but it ends up being a little more aggressive than intended and the mood shifts quickly away from being playful and innocent.

 

They’d talked about it before, hadn’t set a date or planned it out or anything, but Tobin had seemed concerned and wanted to make sure that the timing was right. She wanted to make sure they were safe and careful and ready and dedicated, which made her feel tingly on the inside. She also knew that Tobin was ready, they’d rounded it up with Tobin stating that she was ready when she was, which comforted her in the back of her mind as she moved to straddle her girlfriend from the edge of the bed.

 

Tobin seems a bit uncomfortable in her dress at this point, and the longer that Christen hangs over her head, kissing her deeply, it becomes more and more apparent. She wishes that she could remain attached to Tobin, at the lips, at the hips where she’s straddling her, and at the chest where her body is resting on top of her while she removes the short maroon dress from her body, but it’s not possible.

 

It’s clumsy Christen thinks, they fumbling around her back while she tries to find the start of the zipper around her back and likewise when Tobin finds the snap in the front of her chest and has to forcefully push her romper back over her shoulders. Finding a way to get Tobin’s dress completely off while she’s underneath her also requires a near miracle to execute.

 

When Christen finally feels like she can let out her final breath of frustration when their formal wear is discarded she’s caught off guard when Tobin reaches up to pull her back down to continue where they’d left off.

 

As Christen becomes a little more adventurous, she reaches back down, sliding her hands in a way that Tobin should be familiar with by this point as her signal to arch her back so she can remove her bra. When this step is complete, she’s left face to face with Tobin’s bare chest where she bends down while wriggling her hips a little further down Tobin’s body so that she can have the access she wants to her exposed nipples. Taking turns, she swaps back and forth in order to pay equal attention to each one of them before she continues her way down Tobin’s abdominals, making sure to press soft kisses and light nips to each crevice available. When she reaches her hybrid innie/outie belly button, she keeps going, leading a path all the way down to the waistband of the very last garment adorning her body.

 

Taking her time, she thinks of the other times they’d made it here before, she presses soft kisses along the waistband of the lace panties that were Tobin’s choice for the night. They’d made it here a handful of times before, only two paths left to follow, up or down. The past few times she’s chosen up, but this time she’s ready to go down. Hooking her fingers through the sides of the waistband, Tobin is unyielding, waiting for her to meet her eyes. When they do, Tobin’s are searching, making sure she gets a positive confirmation before she lifts her hips up so Christen can rid her of the last article she’s wearing.

 

It happens really fast when this final barrier is gone. Christen’s good at teasing, really good at teasing, and does so until Tobin’s threatening to just get on with it herself. Instead of the teasing kisses she’d been placing on the lower half of her body, she sits back so that she can maneuver a good angle for her fingers to start their stroking pattern. It’s slow, but Tobin has other ideas. In impatience, she starts moving her hips herself, matching Christen’s strokes at a faster pace. So instead, she drops her hand so that she can slide a finger into her slick opening. She can tell that Tobin’s trying to hold herself together, keep things from going too quick, so she keeps her pace steady and moderate until she feels confident that she’s able to add a second. And when she is, she uses her thumb to start rubbing circles around Tobin’s clit.

 

From then on, Tobin’s a goner. Christen’s not sure if it’s minutes or seconds that she’s watching her girlfriend unravel, but she doesn’t want it to stop. Her eyes are shut, closing her off from everything in the world but Christen, her body is anything but still, wriggling in pleasure, and her breath is gasping.

 

Christen thinks that it might take a while, a couple minutes at least, for Tobin to bounce back from the look on her face but the moment she leans down to crash next to Tobin, peppering kisses of comfort to her cheek, Tobin manages to roll onto her side before she traps Christen down with her leg, sliding her body completely on top of hers.

 

-

 

She hates finals. Absolutely hates finals.

 

Christen spends the greater majority of two weeks in the library to end her first semester of classes. Tobin is supportive, she sits across from her when she needs to study and is usually still there when she doesn’t. Actually, she thinks that the only thing that keeps her sane in the midst of triple integrals, Lagrange multipliers, and partial derivatives is Tobin.

 

Every once in awhile she would force her out of the library citing various ‘necessities’ like food, coffee, yoga, or other activities that she won’t let her mind drift to in the library. The final that they take together is thankfully two days after she officially finishes her two most difficult ones. It’s her intro to college writing final that had actually been the most uncooperative with her schedule.

 

Which is how she’d ended up in Tobin’s car, drinking a coffee like it’s her lifeline, driving to Florida.

 

There’d been a day a few weeks ago where she was laying on Tobin’s bed on her stomach, scrolling through flight options with her mom over the phone. She had to be out of her dorm room by ten am the morning following her last final, however, she didn’t finish until 8:30 the previous night. There was no late night option for her to head home but there also weren’t any options for her to leave the next day until six in the evening.

 

Graciously, Tobin had offered for her to drive down to Florida with her, rather than her little brother flying up to be her company on the drive like he had the previous year, where she could spend a couple days and then fly out at her leisure. Christen had been excited for it, really she had, and she still was but she was also maybe a little bit slightly terrified of being thrust into meeting Tobin’s family.

 

Tobin hadn’t had any finals in two days so she was well rested and starting out the drive, letting Christen have time to rest in the passenger seat if she needed it. Truth be told, she was still trying to recover from the night she’d spent mostly naked on her back in Tobin’s bed, letting all the frustrations from the week escape her through the medium of Tobin’s mouth.

 

The drive is nice though, even though it’s going to take something ridiculous like ten or twelve hours, and with each state she passes through she enjoys the warmth of the sunshine that seeps through the car. Tobin’s not bad company, not bad company at all. Her right hand is never far from her own left, or her knee, or her thigh. They take turns flipping through Spotify playlists that Tobin had downloaded on her phone and talking about anything and everything.

 

When they arrive, Tobin drives her audi through a gated golf community and Christen watches the large houses passing by. She’d picked up hints from when Tobin mentioned things about her childhood, like banquets she’d been forced to dress up to attend and numerous extravagant vacations, she also sure wasn’t oblivious to the three year old Audi that Tobin drove or the Cartier ring that she wore on the daily, but it’s when they’re driving through the neighborhood of sorts that it really begins to click that Tobin had probably been fortunate enough to grow up as comfortably as she had.

 

A door is thrust open and a sweet smell from the kitchen overwhelms her when they arrive to Tobin’s mom’s house sometime around seven. However, if she thinks that that was overwhelming, really she just needed to wait a couple more seconds.

 

First it’s her mom, Cindy, who pulls Tobin into a long warm hug, making a commotion and yelling for everyone else in the house to come downstairs. Her sweet voice is much higher pitched than Tobin’s but is comforting in the way that only a mother’s can be. Not after long she turns her attention to Christen, embracing her in a warm hug while wrapping her arms around her back, she rubs it gently a few times and Christen wonders if that’s where Tobin has picked up that habit from.

 

Jeffrey is the next down, he’s really excited to see Tobin and she realizes just how much Tobin is as well by the look on her face. They’re making plans to try and surf tomorrow morning before her sisters have even made it down the stairs.

 

Perry and Katie are the last ones to make it to the foyer but definitely the loudest one’s there. While Cindy had been really excited to see her, Jeffrey had hung back a little, taking his time talking to Christen but offering his hand for a shake in greeting, but the two older sisters definitely win the excitement scale. Of course they greet Tobin first, chatting at her more so than with her about how excited they are to see her but also how excited they are to meet her elusive girlfriend Christen.

 

There’s so many people littering the foyer that Christen doesn’t see two men who are sending her understanding smiles with laughs tipping their smiles upwards a little until they step forward to grab some of Tobin’s luggage and her own backpack to move out of the way. She’s talking to Cindy a little, easy conversation about how her finals had gone, she said that Tobin had told her about how stressed she was over a couple of them and that she hoped she’d be able to relax a little while she was spending time at her home.

 

“Mom, we get it, you’re important,” Tobin’s mom has her attention stolen by one of Tobin’s sisters, to be honest she’s not sure which one it is yet but she’s guessing by their outfits that it’s Perry based off of Tobin’s descriptions of the two, “Your opinion is more important than ours but will you please share Tobin’s girlfriend with us?”

 

Christen smiles back as Tobin smiles at her sympathetically, mouthing a ‘sorry’ at her but really she doesn’t mind, knowing that the exact same commotion will likely happen when it’s Tobin’s turn to meet her own sisters. Cindy smacks her daughter with a dishtowel she hadn’t noticed she was holding, she’s also wearing an apron tied around her waist, “Alright, alright, I should go finish dinner. I expect you all to be ready at eight.”

 

Christen watches as she steps away, taking one extra step in Tobin’s direction to give her one more welcoming side hug before she heads back to the kitchen, Jeffrey follows in a similar direction, leaving the group of sisters alone.

 

Perry’s the first one to reach out to her for a hug but Katie’s not far behind. Never has she felt more complimented than when she first stepped into the Heath household. Left and right the girls are complimenting her outfit and how nice she looks, aiming them more at Tobin rather than herself before Tobin steps in to separate them, stating she wants to bring their bags to her room so they can refresh a little before dinner.

 

Perry and Katie look disappointed but understanding and while she has a moment Tobin grabs her hand and leads her down a hallway to the left, when she stops at a door she points at a mirroring doorframe directly across the hall, “That’s Jeffrey’s, Katie, Perry and Mom are all upstairs.”

 

“Okay,” Christen whispers back, noise and voices still booming from the living room and she blushes when she overhears someone say ‘Tobin wasn’t exaggerating, she’s gorgeous.’

 

The room is not what Christen was expecting, everything is lightly colored with distressed wood that’s very beachy. She also needs to remind herself though that this isn’t the room that Tobin grew up in. There’s not much for personal details, a few picture frames dot the surfaces but they also look like they could have been planted there by Tobin’s mom. She finds that the dresser drawers are all almost empty as Tobin pulls a few open to unload her neatly folded clothing from her suitcase. Really it’s the closet that surprises her, when Tobin opens it so that she can toss the backpack she’d packed her three days worth of clothes and the bag she’d stuck Tobin’s Christmas present in, she’s struck by a personal shrine. She’s never seen any of Tobin’s soccer paraphernalia but she supposes this is where is all ends up.

 

“You can thank my mom,” She hears from behind her, there’s jerseys on hangers and stacks of medals and trophies along the shelf that runs just above waist high, “She keeps everything.”

 

Dinner goes well, she’s introduced to Katie and Perry’s boyfriends, the two men who’d been standing with knowing looks in the foyer. After, they all stay up late chatting in living room for hours until Katie literally falls asleep sitting up.

 

When she wakes in the morning it’s to the sight of Tobin fastening her bikini behind her back, it’s unbelievably early in the morning and normally she’d be keen to get up and head with Tobin to the beach to do yoga while she surfs but her exhaustion wafts over her as Tobin kisses her on the forehead and tells her to go back to sleep, assuring that she’ll be back in an hour or two.

 

True to her word, she is, and Christen stirs when she tries to creep back into the room unnoticed, but at that point she doesn’t think she can fall back asleep so she decides to throw on a bikini of her own.

 

The beach is nice, it’s very different than the one by her own parent’s house in California but she is ready to welcome any possible similarity to her home state if the sun is beating down on her skin and she can hear the waves crashing down the shore.

 

Tobin sneaks off again to catch some waves with her brother after deciding that it’s safe to leave Christen sitting on some towels near her sisters, she was probably a bit bored with the conversation anyways since they’d turned to discussing their favorite products for curly hair and who exactly was responsible for encouraging Tobin to wear the maroon dress a few weeks ago. But Tobin’s decided she’s had enough and returns to the sand just to tug on Christen’s hand, pulling her back down to the ocean.

 

Christen is yelling at her jokingly, angry that she’s pulling her into the water that’s not as cold as she had anticipated but still is a bit of a shock to her skin.

 

It’s then that she knows. It’s when Tobin’s got her arms wrapped around her waist, her back turned so that she’s blocking the waves from crashing into Christen, their cheeks pressed together, the leftover taste of salt from when Tobin had pressed a quick peck to her lips, and the sweet sound of Tobin laughing into her ear. It’s then that she knows that she loves Tobin.

 

Two days later, Tobin is dropping her off at the airport so that she can make it home in time for Christmas eve. She’d booked a round trip flight from Florida so in a few weeks she knows she’ll be back in almost the same spot, looking for Tobin as she picks her up so they can drive back to North Carolina together for the spring semester.

 

Her stomach feels like it’s sinking though and she knows that she’s going to miss Tobin more than she cares to admit. She already waited with her in line to check her bag and they need to separate now so she can go through security. They’re currently that embarrassing couple that’s hugging in front of security that can’t let go.

 

Before she can stop herself, she’s saying it. She lets out the words she told herself she was going to save for the new year, “I love you.”

 

She feels her own body clench and tense up but surprisingly to her, Tobin’s doesn’t. Tobin doesn’t even flinch, just keeps rubbing her back, she leans back, presses one last peck to her lips before whispering, “I love you too Chris.”

 

Tobin says it casually, like this isn’t the first time she’s dropping Chirsten off at the airport or like it’s a common occurrence. She says it casually like Christen’s leaving home for work in the morning or like Tobin’s dropping her off at her dorm room for the night.

 

Surprisingly satisfied with herself, Tobin gives her the courage to back away, nudging her and letting her know that she should probably get going, as much as she doesn’t want her to. It warms her that Tobin waits and watches as she goes through security, not leaving at least until Christen’s out of sight and probably taking her shoes off.

  
Mostly, she just can’t wait to get back.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, there you go. If you're reading this congratulations on making it to the end. I'm really horribly tragically bad at ending fics so I'm sorry if the ending is a bit disappointing, I'm still not necessarily a big fan of it myself.
> 
> Also you can hit me up on the tumblr if you wanna know my lame excuses for not uploading: sar7891.


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